


Complications

by Hormonal_Trashbag



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, Angst, Baby Fic, Established Relationship, F/M, Mommy Issues, a little bit of smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:32:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6479908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hormonal_Trashbag/pseuds/Hormonal_Trashbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey didn’t expect a change. She didn’t want any. What she had with Ren was complicated enough as it was.</p>
<p>Complications found her anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the start of a new fic. I know the last chapter fic I wrote was total crack, but you should expect something very different from this. I hope that's okay. :) If it isn't immediately obvious, I was inspired by Hungry Hearts.

He rolled his hips into her with controlled jolts. She had already been moments from orgasm before he had entered her with a sharp, gliding snap, and now as he continued relentlessly, refusing to let her fall from her high, her voice was hoarse from the haggard, gulping screams he elicited from her. The sounds she made only seemed to encourage him, and as he approached his own release, his composure disintegrated.

His breath was warm on her skin, his mouth open and hovering over her throat as he panted. She clenched around him, hazily smirking when he gave a deep groan, but he wouldn’t be slowed. He rutted into her, sacrificing power for speed as their hips violently slapped together.

“Come on the outside,” she croaked.

He didn’t hear her.

His voice elongated into a shaky cry as his muscles tensed. Dazed, she watched the veins in his throat go taut, his face moist with sweat and flushed. He shuddered, spilling warm ribbons of his thick, viscous essence into her. The feeling of him coating her insides was too pleasant for her to complain then.

When he shifted off, he settled next to her in what small space the bunk had to offer, their chests heaving in tandem. She blinked at the black durasteel over their heads, and he rubbed her hipbone with his thumb, smearing over the blossoming mark he had left there with his giving lips.

“When do you have to go back?” she asked.

He shifted onto his side, gently kissing her. “Too soon.”

She nodded, winding an arm around his neck.

Their meetings were always too short. Brief entanglements that spanned hours and minutes rather than the days and weeks she could have spent in Ren’s bed; it was difficult to keep completely secret.

Most of her friends in the Resistance had figured Rey was meeting _someone_ during her monthly disappearances, and she didn’t bother to refute. She wasn’t going to lie to them, and their whispered suspicions were not going to do her any harm. They could think what they wanted.

She had no idea what Ren said to those of the First Order when he left. Most likely, they knew about as much as her friends did. It wasn’t easy, to have a secret relationship with a man who was technically her enemy. Technicalities hardly stopped him from staining her skin with his mouth, though.

His mother knew--had probably known it would happen before she did--but General Organa never said anything. Rey wasn’t sure if she was disappointed, or if she honestly didn’t know what she could say. She waited for General Organa to beg her to bring Ben home, as she had once asked Han, but she didn’t. Rey suffered through her concerned glances and knowing frowns.

General Organa only knew what her son had done, not who he was. Rey brushed the woman’s worry aside.

Rey didn’t expect a change. She didn’t want any. What she had with Ren was complicated enough as it was.

Complications found her anyway.

She cursed Ren’s name, tears streaming down her face as she sat in a medic’s office, awaiting the results of her urine test. Rey already knew what she was going to be told, but to find the test positive was still a slap to her face. She clutched her middle, weeping.

That night, she gathered her few belongings and stole away without a word.

She met Ren a week later. Rey had sold her burgled X-Wing for a cheaper transport, and though it was not the nicest thing she had ever flown, it was better than being recognized as part of the Resistance.

The system they agreed to meet on was neutral, and grey clouds clung to the sky as she stood, watching Ren’s upsilon class shuttle gracefully descend. Before he could stumble down the ramp, she could feel his choking panic. He could sense it. The complication. It tore at him.

She stood her ground as he burst towards her, chucking his mask to the dirt as he approached. He stopped with only a foot between them, and she tilted her face upward to look him in the eye. His expression was utterly tormented. She bit her lip.

“Rey...” his voice was strangled, “you’re...?”

She nodded, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Some part of him, buried deep, pulled tight and then snapped; Rey could feel it so acutely, it was as if she was the one breaking. Her chest squeezed tight, and she struggled to breathe.

He sunk to his knees in a boneless slump. She watched as he carefully peeled back her top, revealing a flat, muscular stomach. It wouldn’t stay that way for much longer. A horrible noise ripped from his chest, something akin to a bawl, and his forehead and palms pressed to her bared skin. Rey let her tears fall, her hands stroking his hair.

“Snoke can’t have him,” he rasped, his voice fluctuating wildly. “He’ll want him. He can’t--”

“Snoke won’t get anywhere close to me or the--”

Ren’s eyes were rimmed with red when he looked up sharply. He wrapped his arms around her waist in a blatant show of possession.

“Snoke was able to get to me, and I was surrounded by heroes that were responsible for taking down the Galactic Empire,” he spoke in a dangerous tone. “I’m not taking any chances. Not with you,” he nudged towards her belly with his chin, “not with him.”

She wanted to ask how he could possibly know she was to have a son. It could wait.

“What do we do?” she sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “A Resistance medic already knows I’m pregnant. If we--”

He interrupted her. “I’m not going there, and neither are you. You left them for a good reason. They wouldn’t help us, and you know that.”

“Well, we have a short list of friends. Obviously the First Order is out of the question!”

“I’d never suggest that--”

Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. She huffed. “Your mother could help us, Ren. She still loves you, even now. Maybe if we...”

He shook his dark curls into her abdomen, the end of his nose digging into her skin. His voice was adamant.

“No. I’m not letting that woman anywhere near him.”

“Ren, we don’t have many options. If she’s willing to help without involving the Resistance, then I don’t see what the problem--”

His voice was scathing, forceful, unstoppable. “My _mother_ knew Snoke was trying to get to me, even when I was a baby. She was able to sense his presence, and she did nothing. Not until she was afraid of me, and then she just pushed me away, dumping me with Skywalker. She was too busy playing with her real baby-- _the New Republic_ \--to care what happened to her son. General Organa can’t help us. I won’t even consider it.”

Rey let out a shaky sigh. The resentment he had for his mother would not be easily forgotten, and she wouldn’t force him to forgive General Organa. He brushed his lips against the skin just below her belly-button, and through the fog of desperation and dread and fear, she felt his frightening protectiveness. He had such a fierce, unexpected love for the little life they hadn’t wanted or planned for.

In his mind, she could hear his greedy mantra of _mine, mine, mine, mine, mine..._

Rey didn’t know how he could feel that way so quickly, not when she was so afraid to even think about their child. What sort of monster could they have created together? Ren’s family had a long legacy of causing chaos in the galaxy.

“Tell me what we should do, then, because I don’t know.” she whispered, shoulders jutting up as she dipped her head forward. She buried her face in her hands, her entire body quivering with her shed tears.

Ren returned to his full height. His face burrowed into the crook of her neck, his hair obscuring his expression, but she could feel the moisture from his own crying against her throat. He was perhaps more terrified than even she was, and they clung to each other, standing between their two ships.

“We run,” he answered at last.

 

* * *

 

They ran. For weeks. They jumped from one world to the next, avoiding any system that aligned themselves with either the First Order or the Resistance for fear of recognition. They would land, sell their transport, and then instantly turn around to purchase a new one. Sometimes they got away unscathed. Other times, they were seen and had to rush back into the relative safety of hyperspace.

She had always been so slim, years of starvation keeping her from filling out properly, so Rey noticed right away when she started showing. She purchased a long, hooded cloak to wear whenever they landed somewhere new. She didn’t need someone targeting her because they thought she would be easier to take down in her _delicate_ state.

Ren was happy, in a strange way. Terrified, unable to sit still, but happy nonetheless. He looked at her as if she had arranged the stars, and it startled her sometimes. He felt so much all at once, while she was having a difficult time just accepting their child-- _son,_ he insisted.

Really, though, Rey was exhausted. She was strong, but the constant travel was wearing her down, and she feared what sort of strain it would have on the vulnerable being inside her. And Ren was, too. Whenever she woke, Rey would find his head in her lap, a hand splayed over the small swell of her stomach. His eyes were just a bit more haunted by shadows every time.

He would mumble so quietly she barely understood, but it was always, “I’ll protect you, I’ll protect you.”

She wasn’t even sure he slept. He was so consumed by his desire to keep them safe he wouldn’t allow himself the luxury of shutting his eyes.

It was becoming more and more evident they couldn’t keep up their restless pattern of wandering.

“We need to find somewhere more permanent,” she told him at last, cradled into his larger form.

He squeezed his arms slightly.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, stubborn as ever.

She disagreed, but that was hardly the point. “I’m _not,”_ she replied tersely.

He tensed behind her, hands flying to their son in an instant, sweeping carefully through them both with the force. Of course, there was nothing for him to find. He pulled her closer to him, digging deeper. She could feel his panic curl around them both in weighted plumes.

“The baby is fine,” she assured him, grabbing one of his hands to steady him, “but I’m completely spent. You are too.”

He shifted, opening his mouth to argue. “Rey--”

“It isn’t good,” she insisted. “We can’t keep it up. I need to be able to rest without worrying about another Star Destroyer on our tail, or another bounty hunter, or another run in with the Resistance, and so do you. You’re not going to be able to protect us if you’re dead on your feet.”

He huffed. It was getting harder for him to fight her on this. She pressured him further.

“And I’m not completely helpless. I don’t need you hovering over me every second,” she paused a moment, lacing her fingers through his. “I’m worried about you.”

Slowly, he exhaled. He leaned his head forward to rest his chin on her shoulder.

“You already have something in mind,” he intoned. That was as close as he would get to surrendering, Rey realized.

She smiled a moment, turning her head to kiss his cheek. “I _do_ have something in mind.”

Though she was well aware he wouldn’t like it.

She rose, stepping out of his hold, and he made a low, dissatisfied grumble. He followed her into the cockpit of their current vessel, watching with a narrowed gaze as she entered a series of coordinates.

 _“Takodana?”_ he glowered.

Rey straightened her back and shot a glare up at him. “Maz is neutral. I know she leans towards the Resistance, but she wouldn’t give us up. Moreover, Maz _likes_ me.”

He paced the small space behind her. “Perhaps she doesn’t mind you, but Maz Kanata despises me. I killed one of her favorite smugglers. The last time I took a trip to Takodana, I brought with me a fleet of Stormtroopers that destroyed her castle. Her castle filled with bounty hunters and First Order supporters and Resistance spies. Maz is by far the worst person to go to.”

“So she’ll chew you out a bit,” she scoffed. “I think she’s earned the right.”

Ren gave her a withering stare.

“Fine,” Rey said, “you can stay with the ship. I’ll go in on my own.”

“Most definitely not!” he growled back. “I’m going with you.”

She beamed up at him. “I knew we could reach an agreement eventually.”

They landed a good distance away from the castle. Rey was relieved to see that it had mostly been rebuilt in the time since her last visit, and if the ships docked in the surrounding area were any indication, Maz had already reopened the old watering hole. Part of Rey had wondered if she might have moved on, but she supposed Maz was too set in her ways to leave her home now.

With great trepidation, Ren led her inside, seemingly determined to keep her at his back. It was packed with gamblers and drunks and general scum, as to be expected, but that did nothing to hide their presence.

Maz’s voice was a loud roar. _“BEN SOLO!”_

If the situation had been any different, Rey might have laughed, especially when seeing Ren cringe. Though he may not have liked it, the use of his birth name in itself was a gift. Very few knew that Ben Solo and Kylo Ren were one and the same. They watched as Maz pushed past men and beasts that were three, four, five, six times her size, all of whom gave her a wide berth.

“How dare you come into my home, after what you did?”

He swallowed, muttering towards Rey, “I told you this was a bad idea.”

Maz was still glaring when she turned to Rey, but her expression was quick to soften. The cloak proved useless to Maz’s knowing eyes; instantly, she understood their situation.

Scowling up at Ren again, she took Rey’s hand. “Come, child. Let me get something tasty and warm in your belly. I have a feeling this brat hasn’t been taking proper care of you.”

Ren bristled beside her, but she scolded him under her breath. “There are better things to argue over.”

“Listen to the girl,” Maz advised with disdain. “She’s smarter than you.”

Rey had to give him a hard look in order to make him follow. Which he only did after letting a slew of curses fall from his tongue.

“You never considered going home,” Maz commented, watching as Rey filled a plate at her table. There was no question, it was a fact.

It had been a long time since Rey had eaten anything beyond bland rations. In another life, the taste of rations would not have bothered her. Now she was scarfing down whatever she could reach, humming as fruit juice dripped down her chin.

“Of course not,” Ren answered, reaching over to swipe the juice from her face with his thumb. He sucked it into his mouth, only further betraying the level of their intimacy. It didn’t go unnoticed. “That isn’t an option, so if marching up to the Resistance is the only help you’re going to offer, we’re leaving.”

Maz scrutinized them both. “Your poor mother is on her own, then. She’s a good woman, Ben. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“She’s the one that dumped _me,”_ he snarled. “Forgive me if I don’t pity her very much.”

Maz shook her head at him, her tone firm. “What of the woman sitting beside you, then? That is your child she carries, is it not? I can tell you’ve both been on the run constantly, not giving yourselves a moment to properly breathe. Do you think she deserves this?”

Rey swallowed what she had shoved into her mouth indiscriminately, some sort of meat, she is certain, and pushed her mostly empty plate forward. Normal food had been a bit too much at the rate she had devoured it, and as it settled in her stomach, she felt slightly queazy.

“Maz, he’s been trying his best,” Rey interjected softly. “He’s been killing himself, trying to keep us safe.”

Ren grazed a hand over her midriff.

“As he should,” Maz told her with a harsh tone. “Perhaps now you can understand what it is to be a father.”

This remark was meant to be abrasive, and Rey saw it cut through him, past the superficial layers of his skin and through armor of muscle and dense bone to slice at his soft insides. She watched him bleed internally, helpless to comfort him. She knew she shouldn’t console him, not when he had been the cause of his own father’s death.

His eyes drifted into his lap, but that could not hide the mistiness she perceived in them.

“In so many ways, you’re still such a boy,” Maz sighed. Rey sensed her pity though, wondering if her empathy was enough to help them.

Ren didn’t disagree with her statement, continuing to stare downward. “I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. I’ve done things that I’ll regret for the rest of my life, but don’t condemn my son’s life because of my actions.”

“You’ve done that yourself, Ben.”

He looked up with child-like surprise, his jaw slackening slightly. “You mean to tell me there’s no hope? No chance for my son?”

Rey had to resist the urge to reach for him, to press her palm to his cheek, to stroke his hair and the length of his scar. She wanted to say that Maz didn’t mean that, but Rey couldn’t be sure. Sadly, she caressed the slight rise of her stomach, trying to think of another solution. It was difficult to keep from crying; she was exhausted, hormonal, and utterly friendless. Maz had been their best chance.

“There’s always hope,” Maz said at last, exhaling. “You’re very lucky that I have a weakness for women and children, because--”

Maz paused, her wrinkled face scrunching up as she sensed something. A visitor she hadn’t been expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos/comments are appreciated, as always. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren and Rey escape. Hopefully, they've found a safe place to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again. This chapter has a little bit more angst in it than the last one, and there is some nsfw content as well. :) Also, while I had originally planned to have this be about 4 chapters long, I'm no longer sure that I can fit all I want to into so few chapters. We'll see.

Rey scanned the great hall frantically, before her gaze landed on Maz’s guest. She had expected someone who posed an immediate threat, perhaps someone from the First Order who could recognize Ren’s face, but it was someone _she_ knew. Rey felt her heart flutter in her chest and rise to her throat.

_Finn._

He was looking for her, had been since her disappearance.

She got to her feet a little too quickly, but Ren was already standing in front of her, his broad back tensed into a defensive position, teeth bared as he growled like a feral creature. Though he no longer wore his easily-recognized black robes, his lightsaber still hung at his hip, and Finn already knew his face. His hand itched for his weapon, but Maz stopped him before he could take it.

“I don’t want any fighting here. I can’t afford to rebuild my castle _again,”_ she glanced up at Finn, who had stormed up to them. “That goes for you too.”

“Let me see her,” Finn glared at Ren.

Ren’s upper lip curled into a vicious snarl, his eyes dark and wild and dangerous. He wasn’t above killing Finn, Rey knew. She leaned her forehead against the divot between his shoulder blades in an attempt to soothe him, her fists gripping his shirt.

“It’s okay, Ren,” she faintly crooned, “I’m okay, _we’re_ okay.”

Some of the tension in his back loosened, but he was not, by any means, at ease. He looked sharply at Maz, who stood with her arms crossed, observing them for signs of a fight.

“You signaled the Resistance,” he accused with a hiss. “Now they’ll be landing on our heads and everything will be taken away.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Maz replied. “Keep that talk up and see how willing I’ll be to help you, Ben.”

“You’re helping _him?”_ Finn seethed, gesturing at Ren roughly. “After everything he’s done? He killed his own father! I saw it with my own eyes! You did too, Rey--” now he was addressing her, and his anger doubled with burning betrayal “--what the hell are you doing with him? He’s a monster! You know he is! How could you--”

“Enough,” Ren barked, “you don’t know anything about us.”

Rey smoothed her palms along his back. “Calm down and let me talk to him--”

Finn’s voice cracked with a too-high pitch. _“Us?”_ he repeated incredulously. “You’re an _us_ now?”

“Let me talk to him,” Rey repeated, her tone stronger

Ren’s voice was a quiet croak. “No.”

Suddenly, it occurred to her what the problem was. It wasn’t rage that shook him, it was fear. He was trembling with terror, afraid of everything he would lose, if she left him to follow Finn back to the Resistance. She was everything he had, and he knew how easily she could be taken from him. She felt it all, and his pain became her own, squeezing her chest so tightly the air knocked out of her.

“I’m-- _we’re_ \--not leaving you,” she promised, curling her arms around him from behind. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

He clenched his teeth, uncertain.

“Wherever we go from here, it will be together.”

Finally, though very displeased, he stepped aside. Her arms fell limply.

She couldn’t help a smile that warmed her cheeks at seeing her friend after so long. He was relieved to see her in good health, though he questioned her long, billowing cloak, and after a moment, his expression hardened again.

“You need to come home,” he told her, stepping closer, though never looking away from Ren.

Ren’s arm shot out, creating a barrier between her and Finn.

“Oh, stop it,” she grumbled, pushing down his forearm.

She turned to Finn, pained by his anger. “The Resistance is not my home, and I’m not going back. The reason we’re here is to find our home, because it isn’t with the First Order or with the Resistance. We can’t be anywhere near the crossfire, not now. Not when we have a responsibility to--”

“Rey,” Ren warned quietly, _“don’t._ He doesn’t know.”

“Get out of my head,” Finn snapped at him, “what don’t I know?”

Rey deflated slightly, looking back and forth between them. “Oh. I figured...I saw the medic the day I left, so I just assumed people would have put it together. You don’t know?”

“Know what?” he asked through his teeth. “What’s going on?”

“Please, Rey,” Ren pleaded. “We should go.”

“Yes, you should,” Maz said at last. “Get back to your transport, go into orbit. I will send you coordinates to somewhere safe. You won’t be able to stay more than a few months, maybe a year, but it will do for now. By the time you’ll need to travel again, you’ll be...better prepared for it, I should think. That is the best I can do for you.”

“Thank you,” Ren murmured earnestly. He swept Rey away, and she let him.

Finn tried to follow. “Rey, you can’t go with him! I won’t let you--”

“I’m sorry, Finn,” she called back at him.

She wasn’t sure she would see him again. Her first friend. But she had priorities over friendship, promises to keep and responsibilities to provide for her child. While she had always been anxious about the small life growing within her womb, never certain how she should feel about him, Rey instantly understood the overwhelming need to protect that ate away at Ren.

They were both sacrificing so much for their son. If they were going to push away everyone they knew, they had better do it properly, because all that mattered was that they found a safe place for him. She bit her lip, arms clinging to her middle as they rushed to their shuttle.

“We’ll be able to protect him, right?”

“We will,” he swore.

 

* * *

 

 

Maz sent them way out to the Outer Rim, to a system that was mostly inhabited by less intelligent life forms, but as they landed on the forest planet of Nemussterra, she felt a calm she had yet to experience since learning of her pregnancy. They sky was grey, the great evergreen trees that steepled its earth daunting, but she breathed in deep gulps of clean air.

She turned to laugh as Ren flopped himself down in the dirt, stretching his long limbs out in a way he hadn’t been able to for months. When she sat beside him, he snuck an arm around her hips and dragged her closer, so her thigh pressed to his side.

“This place is clear,” he murmured, his eyes shut in stubborn weariness.

Rey tipped forward, her lips skimming over his forehead. She knew he wasn’t talking about the sky, with its thick soup of clouds threatening them with rain, or the fresh atmosphere of a heavily forested planet. Nemussterra held a certain neutrality that Rey had never experience before. The force that flowed around them was neither light nor dark, but pure and balanced.

“Sleep,” she told him, barely speaking above a whisper.

He struggled against her suggestion, but now that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, there was little he could do to resist sleep. She kissed his eyelids as his breathing slowed, beaming down at his relaxed face.

“I love you,” she breathed into his hair. If he didn’t hear her, that was fine.

So long as she said it.

As it turned out, when he woke hours later and they trudged to the nearby settlement, Maz had sent the natives a missive, and she and Ren were expected. The only local to speak basic greeted them as they entered, explaining that Maz had seen to everything they could need. Rey was relieved to be led to a small house on the edge of the community, though she had no doubt Ren would have gotten them a place to stay regardless.

She grinned at the thought, following him into the space they had been provided with. It was fixed with a wooden door rather than the durasteel she was so used to, and she stroked her hand down its smooth, sanded surface.

The inside was compact but cozy, with a relatively low ceiling and an open front room that consisted of both a kitchen and living area. The locals were a bit short, their tallest person reaching her collarbone, so the furniture inside was small, even for her. To Ren, who stood a full head over her, they looked toy-like.

He scowled as he sat at the dining table, his legs bent awkwardly as he tried to fit, and Rey snickered at his expense. The chairs were sturdy though, and bore his weight without strain.

“We’ll figure something out,” she told him, her voice drifting as she stepped into the bedroom.

The bed was short, and she knew Ren would take issue with that, but it dipped under her when she sat, surprisingly comfortable. Absentmindedly, she unfastened her cloak, letting it fall onto the mattress, before her hands lightly rubbed her little bump. There was two doors connected to the bedroom, one she assumed was to a refresher, while the other provided storage.

He followed her in, inspecting the refresher and storage space, before peeking out the view port. Thick foliage grew beyond the house, the view a darkened green. Seemingly satisfied by what he found, he finally sat beside her.

“We’re going to have to get a bigger bed before anything else, I think,” she commented with a hum. “Your feet are going to hang off the edge.”

He huffed--Rey sensed this was a problem he had dealt with on more than one occasion--before scooping her into his arms, running his nose through her hair. She sighed when he pulled them down, holding her from behind.

He licked the skin behind her ear, eliciting a startled squeak from her, a hand trailing up her side before gently curling around to her breast, where he carefully palmed at her sensitive flesh.

“Sleep with me,” he mumbled, his chest rumbling against her back. Ren was still tired, but Rey knew he meant it in more than one way.

She sank lower into the bow of his body. He thrummed with longing for her, and Rey felt overwhelmingly desired. His hand was massaging slow circles into her breast, the motion attentive and deliberate, almost cautious.

“Yeah,” she answered, eyes fluttering shut in contentedness.

His every touch was sedate but meaningful, building a steady fire as he exposed her at his own pace, removing her clothes one piece at a time. She arched her neck back and turned to take his lips, but even his tongue was calm as it dragged into her mouth with deep, drawn out strokes.

“You’re so beautiful,” he purred into her open mouth.

She gave a quiet laugh. “No need to try to charm me into bed, Ren. I’m already here.”

He rolled his eyes, hips reeling against hers in retaliation. “I mean it, Rey.”

Her breath hitched at the familiar weight of his hardness, firm against her bare backside.

“Why are you still dressed?”

He chuckled, and the sound reverberated on her skin. Ren stripped himself quicker than he did her, before gravitating towards her once more, holding her in place, his length a searing brand between her thighs. He was taunting her, shifting to press the tip of his erection to her weeping entrance but never sliding home.

“I don’t appreciate the teasing,” she grumbled, reaching down to guide him.

He kissed her neck, then rested his cheek to hers, angling himself into her with a leisurely thrust.

His voice was sincere but light. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

They exhaled together, moving with lazy rocks that still managed to make the bed frame creak. They stilled for a moment, half expecting it to collapse under them, and then he laughed when she did, their bodies shaking in unison.

Every burn of his fingers was a confession of love to her skin. She reveled in his touch, taking all that he would offer with the easy sway of their joint bodies, until she pleaded _more,_ and he was careening into her, faster than she could handle.

After, he moved away slightly, only to pull her onto her back and watch as her chest rose and then fell, her belly jutting into the air.

“I love you, too,” he puffed into her skin.

She grinned stupidly back at him. “I thought you might.”

 

* * *

 

 

Rey woke to an empty bed. It had been six weeks since she and Ren had arrived on Nemussterra, and their son was growing more active with every passing day. She knew Ren had nightmares, ones he refused to discuss with her, but he was allowing himself peace. He slept each night, arms squeezed around her, only ever turning to his other side when he woke in the dead darkness, drenched in a panicked sweat, unable to breathe.

He would quietly sob, and she would hold him close, her belly pressed into his broad back. Eventually, he would fall back asleep, his hyperventilating slowed to snores.

Now, she couldn’t sense him in their little house, and she couldn’t prevent her fear from scratching at the spaces in the back of her skull, a clawed animal that lied in wait. Rey forced herself from the warmth of their bed, pulling a robe over her sleepwear as she rushed out the front entrance. It was drizzling, but if the muddied ground was any indication, it had been raining heavily earlier.

Rey didn’t care. She rushed out with bare feet, slushing through slick pools of rainwater, bile rising in her throat. She couldn’t sense him, not even when she stood outside. Ren was blocking her. Or, the clawed animal taunted, he was dead. He had left her alone on this rainy, forested planet. He would never see the son he had spent months protecting.

She had to tell herself that she would have sensed his dying. She would know, if that were the case. It couldn’t be true.

“Ren!” she shrieked into the darkness of the trees.  _“Ren!”_

Her horrible fear twisted her gut. Rey didn’t resist the urge to retch, bending over to spew her dinner into the mud as tears burned down her face.

She wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve, croaking a broken call, “Ren! Where are you?”

The was a flicker of life. He was there, if only for a moment. Rey stumbled into the thick foliage, unable to see the branches that scraped her legs as she surged forward in the dark.

“Ren!” she cried, arms stretched out to feel in the dark. The grazes that ripped across her limbs from rushing through plant life stung, but she ignored them, running almost blindly.

“Please! Ren--”

A hand reached for her wrist, yanking her downward, and Rey managed not to scream. He was crouched in the earth, shivering, his hair soaked and sticking to his face, and without any explanation, he tugged her into his lap, curling her into him. She dug her nails into him, clutching him desperately, her mind swirling with confusion.

“You can’t do that to me,” she whimpered, absorbing his trembles. “I thought you had died, Ren. You just can’t--”

He covered her mouth with the palm of his hand, silencing her. Her lips were covered with mud from his hands, but she had other concerns. He shook his head, eyes clamped shut, as if afraid someone would overhear.

His voice cracked into a whisper that he pressed into her skin. “He got into my head.”

She stared at him, eyes widened with her alarm. Rey shook her head-- _no, no, no, no_ \--and he pulled her closer, mouth sucking in her damp hair as he gulped for air.

“Snoke knows.”

Rey wanted to puke again.

He let her scramble from his hold, watching numbly as she heaved, face hovering over loamy earth, her entire body hunched over. Twigs dug into her shins as she placed her entire weight into them, and when Ren curved his longer body over hers, she felt skin break. It was easy to ignore, physical pain muted when compared to the pain tearing at her insides.

“Ren,” she rasped, choking on bile, “what are we going to do?”

His arms, bare, bound her with thick, corded muscle, his hands splaying across her prominent belly. She felt cool mud seep through the thin fabric of her nightwear where his hands touched her, her robe having fallen off at some point during her scramble through the trees.

Agonized, he howled into the nape of her neck, breath hot against her skin. She shuddered under him, weeping with him, trying to hold herself together, because he couldn’t do it for them.

“I can’t let Snoke have him, I _can’t.”_

His mind thrummed within hers, an echoing _mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine--_

“Tell me what we’re going to do, Ren, tell me--”

His forehead smeared into the back of her head, knots forming in her hair.

He rambled. “He doesn’t know where we are. I didn’t let him see. He can’t ever know, Rey. I won’t ever let him touch my son. I won’t fail. That woman failed to protect me, but I can’t fail.”

Ren rocked them, but the motion couldn’t fully comfort her. For six weeks, she had happily nested in their little house, and she had foolishly forgotten. They lived in a galaxy that would chew them up and spit them out just as easily as it could leave them be. Rey felt stupid, to have spent those weeks humming to herself, making herself a home when she should have been fortifying them. Even in the Outer Rim, on a planet as remote as Nemussterra, they wouldn’t be safe forever.

“How did he get in?” she asked.

Rey knew, perhaps better than anyone ever could, how careful he was about Snoke seeing. They both were very aware of how enraged he would be at Ren’s abandonment of the First Order, and she had assumed Ren would take all the proper precautions. She was certain he had. There was no one more desperate to keep their child safe than him.

“My dreams,” he answered. “Just as he would when I was young.”

Gradually, she sat up, and he eased off her. Weariness and grief compounded on their shoulders at the grim reminder that they couldn’t rest, no matter where they hid. As long as Snoke was alive and able to get to Ren, safety was a sad illusion.

Rey leaned against him, a new burst of rain filtering through the treetops high above.

“You can’t control your dreams,” she murmured.

He arched his head forward, resting his forehead on her shoulder. “I woke before he could see more, was able to block him as soon as I did. I should be better than this, Rey. Stronger.”

There was a pause in which she could say nothing. What little time she had spent under Luke Skywalker’s tutelage had taught Rey that this line of thinking could be very dangerous. It was a path that led to the dark and perilous life of a Sith.

She turned to look at him, lips brushing the side of his head. “You’ve been dreaming about the baby,” she concluded, smoothly transitioning his thoughts away from his desire for power, even if it was for the sake of their son.

“Constantly,” he whispered.

Her clothing clung to her in the cold rain, a pale second skin that wrinkled over her natural flesh.

“You’ve kept us safe,” she told him. “You didn’t let Snoke see where we are now, and you’ll continue to evade him. He has no power over you.”

His lips pursed against her shoulder blade. “He thinks we’re on Endor. I’m not sure that will deter him for long. My--our son will be special. Snoke knows this, and will stop at nothing to have him. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold him off forever.”

“You will,” Rey smiled into the rain as it fell against her face. “You’ll do what you have to. You’re a father.”

He swallowed her words, muted. She knew he didn’t like the word _father,_ he struggled to speak whenever he heard it. As much as he begrudged his mother, father, and uncle for his neglectful upbringing, Rey saw his regret and self-hatred whenever he thought of Han. He had taken something vital from himself, and she wished she could comfort him, but it wasn’t her place. She didn’t have the authority to forgive him for his actions.

“Take us home,” she told him at last.

He did, not making a sound. Ren carried her through the woods, and she slipped her arms around his neck to steady herself. She was shivering after spending too much time out in the rain. He ran, as if her added weight was no issue for him at all, sticks and fallen leaves snapping and crackling under his barefooted strides.

He was reverent as he slowly peeled her sopping, dirt-caked nightdress away, standing with her under the steady, hot stream of their shower head. Ren traced each scratch she had earned during her clamber through the trees and brush, each stroke of his thumb an unsaid apology. When they finally returned to their bed, Rey couldn’t sleep. They huddled together under the covers, awake but unspeaking, his long fingers stretched wide against her swollen middle.

His head endlessly repeated, _I’ll protect you, I’ll protect you,_ and she could feel his black covetousness deep into the marrow of her bones.

In the early hours of morning, the faint light of dawn approaching, she finally drifted, but her dreams were dim and easily forgotten, a grey blur of people and places. Even then, Ren’s voice permeated the fog of her slumber, droning.

_Mine. I’ll protect you. Mine. I’ll protect you. Mine--_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you've figured this out, but Nemussterra is a planet I made up. 
> 
> Thank you for all the comments/kudos in the previous chapter! The encouragement is greatly appreciated. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ren struggle through the aftermath of Snoke's invasion.

The next day, he wouldn’t speak to her, outside of the small comment he made when she woke.

“We’re safe for now.”

He wouldn’t elaborate, and when she tried talking to him a few hours later, he fully withdrew into his mind, constructing walls she couldn’t penetrate. When he still felt too close, he wandered back into the woods. Rey didn’t chase him again when she felt his presence disappear. The night before had been traumatic, and she understood his need to process what had happened. She would let him have space, if that was what he wanted.

Ren didn’t join her in bed that night. She slept alone, after hours of panic that swarmed her throat.

He stayed in the house long enough the following morning for her to see he was fine, before he wordlessly crept out the door once more.

After another lonely day, she held herself in bed, wondering if Ren realized he was all she had, too. There was just them.

She passed an entire week without seeing him at all. He wasn’t sleeping, not beyond short dozes that kept him sane. If he ate anything, it was only in the dead of night, when she was alone in bed, wearied by lonely dreams.

Five days after his decision to exile himself in the woods, she pitched a fit, screaming as she threw their belongings around the house. She cursed him, for leaving her alone when she was just as terrified as he was. It didn’t help, and he certainly didn’t come back because of it.

She cried herself to sleep each night after that. If he cared at all, he didn’t show it.

Rey didn’t necessarily want to return to how it had been. She didn’t need to pretend that they were perfectly safe from Snoke. All she wanted was for him to hold her, to say he still loved her, as he had on their first day at Nemussterra. That moment felt so long ago, now.

After a full week, she tried to look for him. She shrieked for him, as she had that night in the rain. Ren wouldn’t reveal himself to her, and she wondered how far into the woods he had trekked to hide from her. Farther than she could go in a single day, she was certain.

She considered for a span of three days the option of leaving. Rey could return to the Resistance, and they would welcome her with open arms. They would forgive her for running off with the enemy. She could cry for Finn and Poe and General Organa, and they would understand. She would be a victim, an expectant mother who had been abandoned by a monster on a strange planet, left to fend for herself against a whole galaxy.

She spent a solid six hours imagining Finn’s warm hug. Rey could almost feel his arms and how they would fit around her; she could smell his spicy aftershave as he surrounded her.

Even these spiraling thoughts would not urge him to return, and she couldn’t really leave.

It would be too cruel.

Rey couldn’t do that to him, regardless of how angry she was.

Perhaps he knew that, and that was how he was able to leave her alone for so long. Ren knew she was too kind to run off, even though his current treatment of her was more heartless than anything she could think to do to him.

After fifteen days, her anger subsided to a dull roar. She couldn’t muster the energy to be furious, or to imagine all the people back at the Resistance that could offer her the comfort and affection she needed so badly. Rey was tired, though not in the same way she had been while they had been on the run. That had been easier, because at least she had Ren with her. She missed the way he would whisper to their baby when he thought she was asleep, and the small stirring of motion their son would respond with.

Rey ate because she had to, slept because she had to, bathed because she had to, but all her actions were mechanical and unfeeling. In the long hours, she learned to escape the house by taking walks under towering trees, and however lonely she felt, Nemussterra’s peaceful energy offered her the only comfort she was going to get.

He returned on the sixteenth day.

Ren was changed, and she could feel it. It went deeper than the surface, superficial differences. He hadn’t shaved in two weeks, and there was something more narrow about him. He was gaunt, his skin a grey pallor that instantly concerned her, his eyes surrounded by dark shadows.

Behind his watery gaze, there was resignation in his bones, grief in his every cell. For a few minutes, he stood in the doorway, as if asking permission to enter. She had been sitting at the table, eating a small bun lathered with butter when he opened the door, and Rey hadn’t known what to say.

She had gotten used to the solitary life once more, and for him to enter what had become her territory made Rey feel like a cornered animal. They stared at each other, unable to speak.

Tears welled in her eyes. She stood, and his glance drifted to her expanded middle. Rey was only a bit larger than the last time he had seen her, but to his discerning gaze, it was noticeable.

She turned her back to him, not sure of what she could say. She heard the door shut, and expected him to apologize, or to approach her. She continued to stare straight ahead. Even if he did either of these things, she wasn’t sure she could accept it. He didn’t, though. He was just as uncertain as she was.

For a moment, Rey thought he might have returned to the woods, unable to face her. Instead she turned her head to see him walking past her and head into their bedroom. A minute later, the pattering of running water on tile indicated his starting a shower, and her shoulders slumped.

Rey sniffled, then gave a moist laugh when their son fluttered in a series of kicks against her side, as if he could sense his father’s sudden return. She laid her palm over the little thumps.

“Yes, I know, I know,” she whispered.

The water shut off. Rey stalked into the bedroom, settling on the edge of the mattress, waiting for the door to open. Ren knew she was there, that she was going to approach him the moment he left the ‘fresher. He dawdled inside for a few minutes, and when the door finally opened, she realized he had trimmed his beard a bit, an attempt to keep the hairs of his upper lip from curling into his mouth. She inspected his face--it was a very different thing when his full, red lips were surrounded by dark hair.

Ren wore only a towel at his hips, and her heart broke at how he had thinned. He was still corded with sturdy musculature, but he was narrower.

She hardened her gaze, arms circling her abdomen.

“What you did to me was cruel.”

His voice cracked; he was unused to speaking. “I know.”

He cleared his throat, but said nothing more, allowing her to continue.

“I was alone. I couldn’t even be sure that you would come back. I thought we had decided whatever we did, we would do together.”

“I know,” he repeated, morose.

Rey grit her teeth, glaring at the floor. “What were you doing?”

“Meditating,” he answered.

She stood. “No. You need to give me more than that. You hid yourself away in the woods for weeks. I almost _left,_ because it made more sense for me to go back to people who will actually hold me when I need them to than to wait for a man who won’t.”

Anger flared in his eyes, and for the first time since he walked back through the door, Rey recognized him.

“You can’t leave me,” he growled. “You can never leave me, Rey--”

The slap of her hand against his cheek resonated in the small room. It was hard enough to leave a pink imprint on his face, and he stared at her, stunned. Rage rolled from her shoulders, disbelief curling in her chest at the gall he had.

“You, of all people, have no right to say that to me. You left me, Ren. I was terrified and alone, and you should have been here. I was scared too, but you just _left_ me.”

“I was _protecting_ you,” he barked back, his upper lip curling back into a snarl that seemed more harsh when punctuated with his facial hair. “If my head wasn’t safe, then I couldn’t be anywhere near you. Would you rather I put you in danger? That I put my son in danger?”

She gave his bare chest a small shove. He stumbled a step, surprised.

“How dare you? How _dare_ you look down on me, or imply that I’m not doing my best to keep this baby safe! You’re replaceable, Ren. I have other people who care about me, other people who will actually respect me and recognize my strength. People you could have too, if you weren’t a mass-murdering bastard.”

He grabbed her wrists, preventing any further violence. “I’m _not_ replaceable.”

“Let go of me!” she yelped, struggling against him. His answer to this was to shake her, forcing her to look him in the eye.

“I _had_ to be sure that I was able to keep Snoke out. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a monster constantly lurking in your mind? Do you know how it’s felt to spend my entire life, not a single thought protected or private? To have someone lying in wait since the day I was born? No! You fucking don’t, because--”

“Because I’m no one?” She finished for him with a shout. “Well, I’m sorry I don’t come from a line of prestigious, special snowflake Skywalkers like you did. I’m sorry that my ordinary, boring genes are tainting your precious son--because he isn’t mine, is he? I’ve only carried him for the past several months, I’m only going to give birth to him. He’s always your son, right?”

She might as well have slapped him again. Ren sucked in sharply, dazed. He took no offense to her remark, and instead his face crumpled with hurt.

“Rey--”

She tore her hands away from him, falling backwards a few steps. Rey steadied herself, her calves bumping against the edge of the bed.

“What are we even doing?” she asked, seating herself. “We don’t know how to be parents...I don’t even remember mine. You hate your own mother, and you killed your father. What were we thinking?”

He kneeled in front of her, hands shaking as they ran up her thighs. He could sense where her thoughts were drifting, and it scared him. It scared her too.

“Please, Rey, don’t--”

She couldn’t stop herself.

“Maybe...maybe I should have terminated the pregnancy when I found out,” she whispered.

Rey bit her lower lip hard, squeezing her eyes shut as she tilted her face downward, out of view. He was still trembling as his palms smoothed over her swollen belly.

“No, no, no, Rey,” he rasped, “you don’t mean that. You can’t.”

Ren hiked her dress up, tucking it under her breasts in a sloppy fashion, anxious to feel her skin. He stroked her with both hands, ten fingers stretched wide to hold her fully, his head bowed between them. His beard tickled, his long nose bent against her firm stomach, and when he melted into tears, she could only brush her fingers through his thick curls, nails gently scraping his scalp.

“You can’t mean that. Not about this perfect little life we created. _Our_ baby boy, Rey, ours.”

He kissed her belly as if he were repenting for his sins, utterly subjugating himself before her.

“Of course he’s ours,” he continued to murmur. “I’m sorry, Rey, I’m so sorry. I should have never left you. I was so afraid. I don’t want anyone to ever touch him, not even me.”

Rey knew this. Of course she did. It was impossible to not know how much he despised himself. She leaned down to kiss the crown of his head.

“Hold me,” she croaked. All she wanted was to be held.

He nodded, eager to please.

Ren nudged her forward, carefully tipping her back onto the bed. His skin was still damp, and had become clammy because he hadn’t dried off properly after his shower. She didn’t care though, her dress still hitched over her belly. His towel loosened around his waist when he gathered her into his arms from behind.

His hipbones jutted out a little more than they did before. She could feel them against her lower back.

“Tell me you love me,” she said.

He pulled her closer still, breathing into her hair. “I love you.”

 

* * *

 

Even after a few days of having him back, Ren was still skittish around her. Hesitant to touch her sometimes, and unable to do anything but, at other times. They were both hyperaware of each other, in a way they hadn’t been since the very beginning of their relationship.

The first time they had slept together had been purely physical. He had been tracking her, desperate to get Luke Skywalker into his clutches and eradicate the last Jedi. They had fought, and it had been a strange, one-sided battle with him purely on the defensive while she attacked. He had accidentally grazed her on the arm. It hadn’t been bad at all, but he had cursed under his breath, immediately sheathing his saber and taking her arm to inspect it.

As if their battles were a game to him. He didn’t take her seriously. Rey had suddenly understood why fighting him always seemed so easy. Ren was playing with her. If he had ever really fought her, she would not be standing.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he had said, when he sensed her anger and confusion.

His comment had thrown her off. She tore away, her gaze frenzied as she tried to make sense of him.

“You don’t want to hurt me?” she had repeated, putting dangerous emphasis on each syllable. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Undoubtedly,” he had answered with gentle sarcasm.

She had surveyed him with a harsh glare, trying to seem impartial, but for some reason, her eyes kept drifting back to his lush, pink lips. It wasn’t fair that a monster like him was allowed to be so humanly expressive and, dare she think it, attractive. It certainly wasn’t fair that he seemed to enjoy flaunting his undeniable human-ness in her face.

Rey had huffed, lowering into a defensive stance, lightsaber in both hands. She had no reason to trust him, nor his confusing, strangely caring actions.

“Do we have to do that?” he had asked, effortlessly throwing her off again. “As much as I enjoy our little lessons--”

Rey had shrieked. “These aren’t lessons! I’m actually trying to hurt you! You really are insane, if you think you’re my teacher!”

“Then why do you keep looking at me like that?”

There was nothing smug about about his tone. He was genuinely curious. Rey had no idea what he meant.

“Like what?” she had bit back. She should have known better than to encourage him.

His posture had changed, his expression turning soft. His lips, usually pursed together in an unsatisfied pout, eased into a full line, and very slowly, he caressed her shoulders, then face with his eyes, before his gaze finally settled at her own lips. Rey had squirmed under the weight of his stare, but he didn’t look away from her mouth.

“Like that,” he had answered.

“Stop that,” she had breathed. “I don’t like you looking at me like that.”

His eyes had finally risen to hers. “You started it.”

Forgetting her training with Luke Skywalker, she had thrown a fist at him. He had caught it, and Rey had snaked out of his hold to yank at his hair, which had only served to bring them closer.

“I started nothing,” she had hissed at him, uncomfortable with the proximity.

He exhaled through his nose, and warm air spread against her cheeks. He was close, much too close, but she was already gravitating towards him and before Rey could stop herself, she had kissed him. It had taken no time at all before they were tearing at each other’s clothes, desperate for a closeness they couldn’t reach while dressed.

In the end, it had been a swift romp in the grass, more teeth and nails than lips and sighs.

“I’ve never done that before,” she had told him, lying flat on the ground, the evidence of their relations slick between her thighs.

“Me either,” he had confessed, staring up at the clouds overhead. “Did it hurt?”

She had shrugged, though he would not have been able to see the motion. “A bit.”

Five minutes later, he had cleaned her out with his tongue, not concerned by the taste of his own come on her flesh. Seeing that powerful man with his full head of hair ducked between her legs had been, up until then, the most arousing experience of her life.

He had told her it, whatever _it_ was, should always be like this. Rey hadn’t found the will in her to disagree.

The talking had come later. They would put on an act of dueling for their opposing sides, but given the first opportunity, they would disappear from the battlefield to fuck. Their connection blossomed and they could no longer avoid their emotions. She had seen the betrayal he felt from his parents. He didn’t have to dig deep to see her own sense of abandonment.

They picked at each other’s scabs, gaining new understanding of each other. They were more similar than different, discarded by those who should have protected them. It was impossible, as months passed, to deny that their emotions led to attachment. He clung to her, the one person who could comprehend his grief, and she ceded all her independence to him in favor of security.

He saw past her lonely childhood to who she was without any sense of pity, something even Finn couldn’t fully do. Finn, who had been ripped from his family before he could form any memory of them. Ren made her finally feel like she was more than just a pathetic scavenger from Jakku.

Now was different, however. Rey had always trusted Ren, of all people, to stay at her side when no one else would. Then he had disappeared, and she had been alone again. Rey hated that she had ever learned to rely on someone beside herself for comfort. She loathed the idea of being without the solidarity Ren once provided her, and she knew there was no way she could ever be the same woman that had lived on Jakku.

Ren had ruined her for loneliness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, for all the kudos/comments/general love. You guys are the best!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ren reach an understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled with this chapter, it was hard to get out. I really appreciate the patience you have all had with me. :)
> 
> Also: there is a nsfw scene. A Preggo!nsfw scene. Which was really weird to write, tbh. Especially since I've never been pregnant. I tried.

“This needs to stop,” she informed him.

He had been sitting out in the dirt for hours, legs neatly crossed and his hands resting on his knees, palms facing up. While he looked as if he was meditating, Rey could sense that he lacked any sense of serenity. Ren wasn’t meditating so much as he was listening, to the lax pealing of the wind-chime she had dangled by their front door, to the rustling, splintering, whispering sounds of the nearby trees. He was waiting to hear something out of place, and it concerned Rey.

He gave a muted, questioning response. “Hm?”

_“This,”_ she gestured the space between where she stood and he sat. “Ren, please look at me.”

He did, his expression bemused.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” he replied. His tone left little room for argument.

She stared at his face. Ren had still yet to shave off his growing beard, and Rey discovered that she was less and less bothered by it. The hairs on his chin tickled the nape of her neck when he held her in bed, but she found it rather charming, despite that.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she retorted, but he was no longer looking at her.

There was a quiet snapping, and his head shot towards the sound. Rey followed his gaze in time to see a small, wide-eyed mammal burst into a nearby clearing. He was completely still as it lingered in the free air long enough to scratch itself with its hind leg, and then it was scampering off again, a blur of auburn fur. He allowed his eyes to drift back to hers once again, the tension in his back lessening slightly.

Rey exhaled when he said nothing more. “It isn’t fair, what you’re doing to me.”

He was immediately defensive. It wasn’t the response Rey had been looking for.

“I came back,” he uttered. “Would you rather I hadn’t?”

“I _never_ said that,” she grit her teeth, “but--”

“But what?” he interrupted shortly. “Am I not protecting you well enough? Do I not provide comfort to you? Do I not meet your every physical need?”

“No!” she snapped back, “You don’t!”

There lay the source of their problem. He wasn’t really back. Ren may have returned to her in his physical form, but his mind was still out in that forest, deep in the thick of those towering trees, way beyond her reach.

He remained wordless, and Rey wondered if he _knew_ what it was he did to her. If he was just too stubborn to give in, regardless of what pain he put her through.

“When was the last time you kissed me?” she asked. “Or looked at me? Or talked to me? When did we last have sex?”

He blinked up at her, a frown forming on his full lips. She was so tired of frowns.

“Rey--”

“I don’t want to hear excuses, Ren.”

He had none.

She lowered herself next to him, and he tried to protest, but Ren had no choice but to rise to catch her elbows and guide her downward. Rey was no longer counting down months but weeks to her due date, and the closer it loomed, the more difficult it became to move in her own body.

His hand stretched over her swollen middle, a reassuring warmth seeping through the fabric of her loose, unflattering dress.

“Do you...” she hesitates, huffing. “Do you not find me appealing?”

His expression darkened, a flare of heat curling between them when his eyes met hers, then drifted down over the narrow slope of her nose, the crushed velvet of her lips, then lower still. _No,_ she determined, that wasn’t the problem at all. But something was definitely wrong.

She snuck her arm around his neck, tugging him towards her, her face canted towards his descending one. He allowed this much, only resisting once they were moments from meeting. His jaw tightened as he imposed new control onto himself.

“Ren, please, just kiss me,” she breathed, lips parted, teeth bared in desperation. She could feel his need as if it were her own. Perhaps it was. “Stop holding back.”

“Don’t do this to me, Rey, I can’t.”

He tilted his forehead to press against hers, and at the proximity, she couldn’t clearly make out his features. She let out a shaking sigh.

“Why don’t you--”

He cut her off. “Why do you even want this with me? Snoke got in. He’s tainted me. How could you even want me to touch you?”

Rey pulled back, scrutinizing his crazed expression. This wasn’t about her at all, she realized.

“Snoke has been in and out of your head for years. That never stopped you from fucking me,” she started slowly. “You don’t care if _I’m_ tainted by Snoke’s influence at all. This is about the baby, not me. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

He deliberated for a moment. “Could you blame me?”

She turned away, pursing her lips, her face scrunched together. Rey hated the fact that she loved him, that her love turned her so selfish. It was such a basic, unnecessary emotion, and it had no place in her life. She closed her eyes when they burned and spilled over. He didn’t touch her as she weeped, sitting and watching as she made every attempt to hold herself together.

“Loving you has ruined me,” she accused in a broken warble.

His arms sidled around her waist. “No. _I’ve_ ruined you.”

Rey whipped her head towards him, overwhelmed by sudden anger at his self-pitying. She no longer cared that he was holding back. She took what she wanted, gripping the front of his shirt to rip him towards her.

He grunted at the unexpected collision, his lips a ripe, furious line against hers. Rey angled her face, tongue plunging into his mouth, ignoring the rough scratch of his facial hair. He held himself in a stony stillness, refusing to react at first. She purred as she drank from him, and that was all he needed to crack.

Ren sucked on her tongue, his own appendage relentless as it twisted around hers. His teeth closed around her lower lip, and he siphoned on it until she felt it start to throb and swell, and still he wouldn’t release her. She felt so amazingly desired.

Rey loosened her grip on his shirt, her hand dropping between them to cup his half-hard manhood.

He tore himself from her, snatching her wrist and yanking her hand away.

“Don’t,” he warned with a growl.

She chased his mouth with teeth. “I know you’re scared.”

_“Terrified,”_ he snarled.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be,” she murmured. “I am too.”

She clung to him, whispering with panic. “I’m so afraid of what could happen that I have dreams of this baby ending up in some horrible desert, on the constant edge of starvation. I have these dreams that we won’t be able to do anything to save him.”

He couldn’t say that he would never let that happen. His expression was pained, and Rey wondered what sort of nightmares he might have had.

“All I want is to be allowed to fear the future with you. We can be scared together. The way we’re doing this right now isn’t working.”

He no longer had any fight in him. Ren kissed her again, submitting his fear to her.

 

* * *

 

Rey looked over to where he sat on the floorboards, fixing together a rather rudimentary crib. For all his roughness, Ren was still good with his hands, just as capable of creating as he was destroying. Perhaps it was calming, for him to work on menial tasks, and she wouldn’t deprive him of that, even if she was fairly certain she could do a better job.

He finished piecing together rods of sanded wood and a base, bars that she could already see tiny fists gripped around. Ren was somewhat uncomfortable with the use of wood. There was something impermanent about it that he didn’t like; wood had the tendency to deteriorate and rot, regardless of how well taken care of it was, but Rey had no desire to lie her baby down in a durasteel crib, and it was not as if they had many options. They were surrounded by trees, and not much else.

Ren sighed, wiping sawdust from his bare hands, before standing. She was at the table, clutching a mug of steaming, herbal tea. He started to pass her by, pausing to nuzzle the crown of her head.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She made to stand, but he curled both hands over her shoulders, insistently keeping her in the chair.

“I can do dinner,” she answered, her mug clinking on the tabletop.

“I want to do it,” he assured her.

Rey wondered if he was still seeking forgiveness, and that he somehow thought bending to her every beck and call could make up for his abandonment.

“Besides,” he continued, “you usually like to go on a walk about this time.”

He was right, of course, but Rey hated feeling so useless. She tipped her head backwards, giving a small smile when he ducked his face down to kiss her.

“Are you trying to say something about my cooking?” she asked, only slightly serious.

Ren shook his head adamantly. “I wouldn’t dare.”

There was a moment of softened silence. She looked out the door, left ajar to allow a breeze through. It was a rare, sunny afternoon, the system’s sole star beaming through the usual cloud cover to bathe Nemussterra in yellow.

“You don’t want to come with me?”

He shifted on his feet, his palms slipping from her shoulders. They had been having daily spats about this for two weeks, and it was strange for him to surrender. Ren didn’t like the idea of her being alone in the woods, no matter how close she kept to their house. Now he was relenting. Rey wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“I’ll be able to sense you,” he answered at last, pausing for a moment. “Unless you _wanted_ me to go with you.”

Rey sipped at her tea, before scooting her chair back. He moved out of the way, his hand gripping her hip to support her as she stood. She turned to face him, grinning.

“I won’t be gone long,” she told him. “My feet have been sore all day.”

He nodded his head. His warm palm rose to her full belly. Rey was bursting at the seams, and she knew it wouldn’t be too much longer. Less than a week, she would guess. She smoothed down her dress.

It was a tad more balmy than usual, and the breeze was a welcomed relief to the skin of her cheeks, neck, shoulders, hinting at an incoming cold front. Though she appreciated the summery light on her face, Rey was eager to have the cold on her, the prospect of having Ren’s arms around her, heating her body in the night, was appealing.

There was some residual tension between them, but Rey could tell he was trying. He was actually sleeping at night, rather than lying next to her in fitful silence, holding vigil. He didn’t avoid her like he had. He didn’t look away from her, or hold back from touching her, like he felt he should. But he still wouldn’t discuss what had happened during his self-exile in the thick dark of the deep forest. Rey wouldn’t push him, but she sensed it was not a subject they could forever avoid.

Rey stepped under the shade of a towering evergreen, pushing aside a low branch to pass, ignoring the brush of needles. The dirt was cool between her naked toes, and she exhaled slowly. Ren would scold her later for walking in her bare feet again, but she clung to her new connection to the earth, the trees, the wet sky. Rey reveled in every contrast it had to Jakku.

The sunshine did not last long. She was unbothered by the abrupt, gushing downpour, though it meant the chances of Ren scolding her had just doubled.

Rey returned home at as speedy a pace as she could manage. He was waiting for her with a towel by the time she waddled through the front door, clucking at her with overbearing concern.

“I _knew_ it would rain. I just _knew_ it,” he claimed, rubbing her down.

She smiled, rolling her eyes. “No, you didn’t. It came out of nowhere.”

He made a great, long-suffering sigh, tossing the damp towel over his shoulder. “You should change. I can have food on the table in a few minutes.”

She caught his arm. “Come with me.”

He wavered, eyes widening for a moment as understanding flit across his expression.

“What, right now?”

She simpered up at him. _“Yes,_ right now.”

He sucked in sharply, but then his mouth was dipping down to crash with hers, his large hands gathering the ends of her wet dress to pull it from her forcefully. Rey moaned when he grazed his fingers along her inner thigh, his hand cupping the mound of her sex without preamble.

“Go into the bedroom,” he growled against her lips, before nipping with his teeth. “I’ll be right there.”

He glided a finger through her swollen, sensitive folds once, twice, three times before he rushed to the stovetop to shut off the heat. She heard him hastily throw things into the cooler--probably still contained in pots and pans--as she scooted her underwear off her backside and sat on the edge of the bed.

He was stumbling out of his trousers when he reached the doorway, and by then she had wrangled out of her bra and was fully naked. He saw her undressed frequently enough that Rey wondered how he still found it so astounding, but he stood there for a moment, hungry and appreciative.

“Fuck, Rey,” he mumbled after a beat, kicking his pants from his ankles. “How do you do it?”

The moment he was within reach, she gripped the elastic of his tented briefs to tug him closer.

“Do what?” she snickered, ripping his briefs down.

Ren kissed her, before hissing as she wrapped her fingers around him. He shuddered into her grip, forcing himself to exhale as she jerked her hand a few times.

“Look so beautiful,” he answered through his teeth.

He stepped out of his briefs to clamber onto the bed.

“I thought I told you to stop with the stupid compliments,” she said, pushing him onto his back.

“I mean them, though,” he murmured, palms sliding over the tops of her thighs to grip her hips when she hovered over him.

She shushed him, lowering herself onto his cock. His chin pressed to his chest as he looked down the length of his body to see where they connected.

Her baby bump made any intimacy somewhat cumbersome, and they had had no choice but to adjust, the larger she became. Now, however, Rey had no patience to be embarrassed by it.

“This is okay, right?” he breathed as she slowly lifted herself.

She nodded, pulling her lower lip into her mouth as she sheathed him again. “It’s fine, Ren. Relax.”

He allowed his head to hit the pillow, his eyes to drift away from the easy sliding motion of her body against his to her breasts, plump with milk. She cradled her middle with a palm, steadying herself as she rode him at a painstaking tempo.

Rey clenched her muscles around the thickness of his shaft. His gaze turned bleary as she repeated the action.

“God, Rey,” he groaned, reeling his hips up into her, “you’re perfect.”

He reached between her legs to brush at her clitoris with the rough pad of his finger, and she gasped, her hips stuttering. The sensation was blinding, and he was quick to guide her into release with the swift, deft flicks of his finger.

She slumped against him, riding the shockwaves of her orgasm even as he carefully rolled her onto her side and slid out of her slick, tight warmth. She knew he hadn’t come, and when she pushed herself back into a seated position, he was working to finish himself off, his cock in his fist.

“I can do that, if you want,” she whispered, eyes focused intensely on the snapping rhythm of his hand.

He grunted, hips meeting his clenched hand with jolted thrust. “I got it,” he assured.

Rey bobbed her head, then arched her neck down to smooth her lips over his.

“Do that again,” he muttered when she began to pull away.

She laughed, humming into his mouth as he tilted his face and pried her lips open with his tongue.

Ren tipped his face away, clamped his mouth shut, teeth grit together as he stifled a cry into a drawn-out whine. She peered down his torso to watch his come surge in bursts of thick white, spurting across the flat of his stomach.

“I’ll go heat up dinner,” she said with a smile, kissing him just once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, for the kudos/comments/general love. You guys are the best!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I haven't really written childbirth before. I did a bit of research, but I didn't want to turn this into a horror story, so I didn't go too into detail. If there are any inaccuracies, I apologize.
> 
> May the fourth be with you!

It was cooler out, much cooler than Rey could ever remember Nemussterra being. A cold snap had appeared out of nowhere, and though she found it refreshing, she was unused to such weather. Jakku had been in a constant state of broiling, and though it had already been a couple years since she left, Rey still had difficulty adjusting.

So, she had bundled herself in layers, forcing herself to walk. She was aching all over, the muscles of her lower abdomen cramping, but she needed her daily ramble through the woods. Any lack of activity was abhorrent to her.

Rey glanced up to the grey murkiness of the sky. She should head back. It was going to rain again, and the wind was picking up. There might be a storm rumbling through, and she did not want to get caught out in it. She turned back towards the house.

Her steps a bit more deliberate as she made her way home, Rey had to pause at a strange bursting sensation from within, and the sudden trickle of warmth that trailed down her inner thigh. She scowled, the loss of control of her bladder was unpleasant but nothing new to her; she simply loathed the idea of having to change her clothing again.

Huffing, she shuffled through the front door, expression still disgruntled when Ren looked up at her from the holobook he was reading.

“Are you all right?” he asked, tone amused once he made close inspection of her and could see nothing out of place.

She headed for the refresher. “I just peed myself,” she grumbled back, and he huffed a quiet laugh, relieved.

“It’s not funny,” she called as she entered the bedroom. “Don’t laugh at my uncontrollable bodily functions.”

“I’m not,” he replied, following her to lean on the doorway. He watched as she gathered a change of clothing from their closet. “Do you want help?”

She gave him a look. “I don’t need--”

A sharp pang of pain rolled through her, worse than what she had felt earlier. She grunted, a hand shooting up to grip a shelf in a feeble attempt to steady herself. Rey dropped her change of clothing, her free hand reaching between her legs, a sudden fear that it had been blood, not urine, dripping down her thighs. She brought her fingers up to realize it was neither.

“Rey?”

Ren was concerned now, had watched the panic on her face. She looked up at him.

“I think...I’ve gone into labor,” she breathed, clenching her teeth as the pain curled into her.

He was gently tugging her away from the closet in an instant, his hands at her sides as he pressed a too-brief kiss to her forehead. Rey swallowed.

Her knowledge on childbirth was somewhat limited. She had an understanding of the mechanics, but she had only witnessed it once, through the folds of a pleasure tent, when one of the women that worked there had gotten pregnant. Rey had been thirteen, and what she could see in the hazy heat and dusty dark of that tent was a woman screaming, her legs parted for a small group of sister prostitutes that were easing her through the labor. She had tried to ask about it after. The only words of wisdom she had been given was to avoid opening her legs for a man; don’t get pregnant.

Ren guided her to sit onto the bed. For someone who had spent the past weeks an emotional wreck, he was startlingly calm, much more so than she was. She had always known that the labor would come eventually, but she had put off thinking about it too much. Now she was regretting that decision.

He realized she was agitated, and cupped her cheeks with his palms, forcing her to look at him. “Rey, it’s going to be fine. You’re so strong. You know you can do this.”

She nodded. She knew this, but that didn’t keep her from making a blubbering, wet sob.

Ren started. “Rey--”

She craned her neck up, begging for a kiss, and he acquiesced, leaning down to quickly cover her lips with his own.

“I’m having a baby,” she whispered. This fact hadn’t seemed so real until that moment.

The corner of his mouth tipped upwards.

“You are,” he confirmed.

She gave a short laugh, and he kissed her again. Then he was clambering around the house, stripping the bed from under her and laying down towels, their linens tossed aside in his rush. He asked if she wanted to bother changing still, but her response was to hike her dress up and start to shift her underwear down. He helped her ease them over her thighs with swift efficiency, an edge of impatience tugging at his expression when he saw that she had been walking in her bare feet again.

He charged into the refresher to wet a towel. She watched as he cleaned her soles, and then he was helping her further onto the bed.

Rey looked out their small viewport. It was raining.

 

* * *

 

Nine hours in, Rey was done. Ten hours, and she was tempted to abuse Ren with the force. Eleven, she was convinced their son had no intention of letting her birth him. At twelve hours, Ren stepped out of the room to get her some ice, and he returned to see her off the bed, squatting low to the ground, both hands propped on the edge of the mattress. He had yelped, startled, before scrambling to get her back onto bed. She had yelled at him _\--I’m just using gravity!_

Thirteen hours and it was howling outside, wind and rain battering against their house relentlessly. Rey knew her face was blotchy and red from excursion, and her hair was matted and clinging to her cheeks and forehead, damp with sweat and tears.

Ren was starting to worry, and she could sense it, see it in the way he hovered, his shoulders jutting forward and his head ducked. His hand clutched hers, thumb stroking carefully. It was taking longer than he thought it would, but Rey did not have the same luxury as he did; time to fret, because then another contraction was squeezing through her.

She grit her teeth, clenching her muscles, and stared out the viewport, fresh tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She focused on the flecks of water on the duraglass pane, watching as they streaked downward.

It was over quite suddenly, and she slumped, breathless, against the pillows Ren had propped behind her back. There was a pealing of high pitched shrieks, and she found the sound somehow reassuring. Already, the flailing form of little limbs and screams was cradled in Ren’s arms. His expression had crumpled, and Rey watched helplessly as he pressed his forehead to that of their child, smearing blood across his face.

“Ren,” she whispered.

His only answer was a pathetic sob. Alarm prickled at the edge of her senses. He shouldn’t have been crying. Something had happened, something not right.

“What’s wrong?” Rey tried to sit up, wincing as she fell back again. “Ren, let me see him. You’re scaring me.”

He shook his head, and fresh panic coiled through her chest. He was gently stroking their baby’s face with his thumb, swiping away grime. In Ren’s arms, the screaming infant looked undersized to Rey.

_“Her,”_ he finally corrected with a croak.

Rey froze, air clinging to her lungs, her eyes fixed on him as he slowly approached to lay the wriggling, wailing child against her soft chest. She lifted her hands to hold her daughter, palm attentively pressed to the newborn’s head and backside. Rey sniffed, smiling down at the red, toothless mouth, open wide as she continued to bawl.

She had a daughter. She was a mother. Rey couldn’t sort through her feelings fast enough to react to the cries of her child, cries she’d yet to interpret.

Ren was silent as he got a warm, moist towel to clean their daughter, and Rey wouldn’t let go of her, not even as he ran the cloth against fresh, pink skin.

She could only look at the surprisingly thick, black hairs on her head, the dainty eyelashes that brushed against her round cheeks.

Ren wrapped her in fresh linen as Rey fumbled to undo the buttons that went up the front of her dress. He understood when she exposed a full breast, and surrendered the tiny, white bundle to her hold, watching with undisguised amazement as their daughter whimpered, then latched onto her nipple.

Rey hissed at the unfamiliar sensation, but huffed a soft laugh when the baby gave a grunting sigh at the taste of her mother’s milk. Ren leaned down to kiss her forehead, salty with sweat, his hand covering hers as she held held their daughter’s fragile head.

“She’s beautiful,” Rey mumbled. “How is it possible for a living creature to be so beautiful?”

He didn’t have an intelligent answer for her. Ren was peering down at the  
head of dark tufts, clearly inherited from him.

“She looks more like you,” he murmured at last, as if that was an explanation. He sounded relieved by it.

She grinned, despite her exhaustion. “She has your lips, though.”

He made a quiet snort. “I guess I should be glad I managed to pass on my one, good feature.”

She shushed him, then returned her gaze to the baby girl in her arms. Contented, no longer interested in crying, she was making low sounds as she drank. When she had enough--which wasn’t much--she detached, gumming her pink mouth before mewling, and scrunching her little, weary face. Rey released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“She’s tired,” he commented.

“It must have been very stressful,” Rey replied.

Ren was hesitant as he sat beside her, even more so as he slowly curled an arm behind her. He didn’t want to disturb the little roll that was drifting into sleep, but showed his affection with a nudge of his nose along the stretch of her neck to the exposed skin behind her ear.

“I’m sure,” he agreed quietly. She didn’t need to look his way to know he was teary-eyed.

They both studied the worn, wrinkled face of their daughter for a moment. She was a delicate fusion of their features, leaving no doubt that this little--frighteningly tiny--being had been a joint creation. For that, Rey was glad.

His voice was more muted as he continued. “You did so well.”

Rey inclined her head once, unable to work her voice. She recalled first finding the Skywalker lightsaber, and how Maz had said Rey wouldn’t find her family behind her, but ahead. It hadn’t occurred to her that Ren would be that family. That they would leave everything behind to make one of their own.

He left her only to bury the placenta outside. It wasn’t a custom he had ever heard of, but Ren didn’t argue with her, regardless of the persistent rain. Later, she would tell him that it was a sort of tradition she had witnessed once of Jakku. It would bind the child to earth, that they never get lost in the deep expanses of endless space. She wanted very little else for her daughter.

After replacing the linens once more, Ren held her for the rest of the night, a constant body of warmth and protection flush to her.

 

* * *

 

It was difficult for Rey to get used to seeing her daughter so frequently held by Ren. That little life had spent months and months as a part of her body, and now she and her father were utterly inseparable. He wasn’t being selfish; it was not as if Rey never held their child, but their daughter had yet to ever be set down in her crib, and she was several days old. When she slept, and it was frequently, it was cradled against Ren’s chest.

He was lounged against the headboard of their bed as the bundle napped, having just had a long meal. Rey approached him, then stroked his hair out of his face. He glanced up at her with one of his almost-smiles, contented.

“Will you put her down for a moment?” she whispered.

He gave her a brief shake of his head. “If I move an inch, she’ll wake again.”

Rey wasn’t going to discuss that at the moment. She sighed, carefully settling next to him. Their daughter was drooling against Ren’s shirt, but he was unbothered by it.

“We need to name her,” she murmured, better tucking the blanket their daughter was swaddled in.

He wavered for a moment. “I know.”

Rey looked up at him, curious at his uncertain tone. He clearly had more to say, but he was reluctant to spill.

After contemplating, he admitted, “I’ve been calling her Ahnna.”

Rey should have been upset. They hadn’t discussed it at all, and it seemed he was already settled on the matter. Yet, as Rey’s gaze fell to the face of her dozing daughter, to her parted, pouting lips, she found herself unbothered by his choice in naming her. She had no doubt what had inspired the name, considering his fanatical obsession with his grandfather, but even that could do little to trouble her. Ren had a connection to his family, and though he only grasped at a small part of his heritage, it mattered to him. Rey didn’t have that kind of connection. She wasn’t going to deny him.

“Ahnna,” she repeated, softly testing it aloud. It was supple in her mouth, natural to her ears as her own name, or Ren’s.

He spoke cautiously. “Is that all right?”

“Yeah,” she assured him, hand closing over his bicep.

He was thankful.

She briefly smoothed her lips over his.

“It’s better than Vader, or some lame variation of that,” she teased under her breath.

He chuckled, a rough, rumbling sound from the depths of his broad chest. Rey grinned at the somewhat unfamiliar sound of his laughter. It was enough to stir Ahnna though, and he grimaced, stilling as she gave a faint whimper.

Rey gave a breathy laugh. “Give her to me.”

He tensed for a moment, looking her over before slowly depositing Ahnna into her open arms. His hesitancy passed quickly, and he gathered Rey into his arms, his compromise for releasing Ahnna to her. She relaxed against him, deciding to let the strange moment go.

Ahnna fidgeted, freeing a hand from the blanket to move it in the open. Ren tutted at her, gently folding the blanket back around the tiny fist. Ahnna cracked her eyes open for a second, before deciding against the idea, and then all tension left the room. The baby fell back into a lulling slumber.

“You’re going to be a good father,” Rey told him.

He seemed as if he wanted to believe her more than he actually did.

“I mean it,” she continued, “you’ll be a great father. I really think that.”

Rey could feel that he was thinking about Han, as he did whenever father came up. Han was the father that had feared him, even as a child. Ren avoided that subject at all costs, but Rey had seen the pain Han had dealt his son, despite his intentions. Good intentions didn’t make up for whispered--then shouted--arguments about how Ben was too dangerous, too dark, too much like Vader.

_How could my son end up like that?_

It was a future that Ren feared, perhaps as much as whatever Snoke had in store for them, should they ever be found.

Rey could feel the violent, speedy thuds of his heart against her back as he continued to stew in silence. His arms squeezed tighter, to the point of discomfort, but she didn’t say a word of complaint.

“I don’t want her to ever feel like this,” he mumbled.

Her voice was faint. “She won’t.”

Ren realized he was holding her too tightly and loosened his arms, apologizing with a low tone.

“My father failed. I can’t be like him.”

“You’re nothing like him,” Rey assured him, hushed.

He exhaled, slowly, before resting his chin on her shoulder. Ahnna was fussing again, her face starting to scrunch and redden. Rey shifted slightly, but that didn’t stop the infant from parting her round lips and releasing a sharp cry.

“She probably needs changing,” he muttered, “I’ll do it.”

Rey scooted away from Ren, allowing him up, and he rose from the bed to slip his arm under Ahnna and lift her away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, for reading/commenting/leaving kudos. It's greatly appreciated! :)
> 
> And hopefully the next update will come sooner, since my semester is finally over and I don't have to worry about finals.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait! I know it's been a while since I last updated, but it's been a crazy few weeks. Thanks for being patient!

Rey continued taking her walks, once she felt a bit more adjusted to motherhood. While she loathed every moment she spent away from Ahnna, she needed the air, the very real feeling of loam under her heels, cracked from years of ill-fitted boots and desert air. The longer they stayed on Nemussterra, the more she grew to love its chilled, damp air and moss laden forest.

She was dreading the day they would need to leave, and knew Ren felt similarly. He had no great love for the lofty evergreens or gray skies, but this was the place their daughter had been born to. That was significance enough for him.

Rey wondered where Ren had been born, and if that place was at all important to him. She struggled with the thought that Ben Solo was a stranger to her, that Kylo Ren had been given life in the emptiness of space, surrounded by durasteel. She had very few memories before Jakku, though she liked to believe that she had been birthed on a beautiful planet, one worth returning to some day. A place she could bring her own child to.

A small, avian creature with umber plumage flit overhead, close enough to catch her gaze. Rey stared up as it perched on a high branch, then groomed itself with a blunt beak meant for hunting insects rather than pecking through bark or dipping into fluted flora. It sensed her eyes, however, and was flapping off again, beyond her vision.

Rey allowed herself a smile. She wanted Ahnna to be able to grow up here, to watch the flight-hungry birds and scurrying mammals.

She was scared it wouldn’t be possible.

Rey stopped herself, shutting her eyes and slowly exhaling. Ahnna had been asleep when she had left, cradled in Ren’s arms, but she’d likely be hungry when she woke. She was growing so quickly, and while she had seemed so tiny in Ren’s hold the night she was born, Ahnna no longer looked so fragile.

She returned to find Ren at the kitchen table, his seat scooted way back to make room for his lengthy legs. He was slumped in leisure against the wooden rods of the back of his chair, while Ahnna quietly gurgled in her sleep, curled into his chest. She wore no more than her linen diaper, and the plump rolls of her baby fat were endearing.

Still, it was a cool day. Rey shut the door to keep the heat of the house from escaping.

“I think she might be feverish,” he murmured as she approached, his eyes fixed on Ahnna’s full head of dark curls.

Frowning, Rey pressed the back of her hand to Ahnna’s round cheek, but she felt perfectly normal.

“She feels fine--”

Rey’s fingers grazed his hand as she pulled away, and she had to pause, before covering his knuckles with her palm. Finally, he looked up at her, his expression bemused.

“Your hands are cold,” she said, pausing. “Have you eaten at all today?”

She wasn’t sure that she had seen him eat in the past three days at least. Granted, she hadn’t been paying close attention, but that had been a mistake, she realized as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

Rey wanted to be angry with him. She had spent a good fourteen years of her life straddling the precipice of starvation. There was no need for him to go hungry, no good reason.

But she knew it wasn’t intentional. He just...didn’t think about his needs, not as he should. Every corner of his mind was hyper-focused on the little girl on his chest, and he could hardly spare himself a free thought. Rey swallowed, clenching her eyes shut as she bent her neck forward and planted a kiss on his hairline.

She was suddenly very afraid, with a sort of fear that licked at her bones and coiled in the center of her chest. Dread replaced whatever frustration she might have felt, and the urge to smother every bare inch of his skin with her mouth was intense. It was a sort of imageless premonition that he wasn’t going to be around forever.

If he sensed any of her distress, Ren didn’t show it.

Rey reminded herself of what Luke Skywalker had told her of visions, how they were impossible to interpret, how they might never come to be. While she had not been his student for very long, it seemed best to listen to his wisdom in this case. She let the feeling go.

Ren wasn’t going anywhere, she assured herself.

“You need to take better care of yourself,” she chastised, smoothing her lips over his.

He sighed into her kiss. “I know.”

She hardly needed to say that if he _didn’t,_ he wouldn’t be able to spend very long with Ahnna. This, he did sense, and it was enough to sober him. He pulled back slowly, craning his neck to nuzzle their daughter’s hair with his snout and breathe in her clean, baby scent.

“Can you feel her?” he asked after a moment. “In the force?”

Rey nodded her head, of course. It was like feeling an extension of herself.

Again, he was silent, and Rey slinked her arms around his shoulders from where she stood above him.

“She’ll be stronger than either of us,” he said, his tone self-assured.

Rey rested her chin on the crown of his head. “You can sense that?”

He waited for about a minute before considering her, his head tilted back so he could see her face. His reluctance to speak concerned Rey, not only because it pertained to their daughter’s future, but because he quite obviously did not trust her enough to speak freely. She had to wonder what that meant for their own future.

Ren had always detested how his parents kept secrets from each other and from him, but now that he was a parent himself, that seemed to be where they were heading. No matter how much he abhorred his father and how he had been raised, it looked to her as if there was no avoiding Han Solo’s weighty influence.

“I’ve seen it,” he finally answered.

Rey sucked in sharply.

“You have?”

Something akin to worry fluttered in her chest, compounded with a sort of joy that Ren had seen their daughter grown, that there was hope for her surviving Snoke and the First Order, as well as any other potential dangers.

He was quiet once more.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she questioned.

He didn’t apologize, nor offer any form of explanation. She couldn’t say she was surprised.

“Please talk to me,” Rey said, “I don’t like being kept out of the loop like this.”

Ahnna stirred then, her first instinct was to give a garbled cry, and Ren was thankful for the interruption. He slowly got to his feet, cradling Ahnna’s head as he stood. Wordlessly, Rey opened her arms to take the whining infant, and he deposited her with care.

“Go eat,” she mumbled, taking his seat and opening her vest, tabling the discussion for at least the moment.

He watched with a fascination that had yet to fade as Ahnna parted her full, pink lips to feed. With a gentle hand, he reached to stroke Rey’s hair, the only apology he was going to give.

“Are you hungry for anything?”

She surrendered a small, tired smile. “Whatever you’re having.”

“All right,” he hurriedly slanted his mouth over hers, before making long strides towards the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been months since Ahnna was born. She had done nothing but grow and grow, and though he still hesitated each time he set her down in her crib, Ren finally conceded that he could no longer hold her as she slept every night, especially now that she was on a more regulated schedule. Rey was relieved in some ways, that it was _her_ that he held in bed again.

She glared up at the shower faucet, the water streaking across her face, as suds ran from her slick hair and down the slopes of her back. She hadn’t cut it in a while, and she was beginning to wonder if she should just let it grow indefinitely. Sighing, she combed her fingers through wet locks.

Refreshed, she stepped out from under the stream of water to snatch a towel and make her way back into the bedroom. Steam followed her out.

Ren was turned away from her on the bed, and she wasn’t sure if he was watching Ahnna sleep through the bars of her crib or if he himself had drifted off. She smiled to herself, creeping closer to check. He shifted slowly onto his back when Rey brushed his hair from his face, his gaze bleary.

His eyes sharpened when he took her in--the towel that barely stayed upright, the damp hair that clung to her shoulders--and he reached for her, a hand grazing from her forearm to her bicep, raising goosebumps as it traveled upward.

He untucked her towel from where it gripped her chest, the material slipping to rest over her hips. Over the past few months, he had not seen her bare breasts unless their daughter was latched onto them, and though Rey felt self-conscious about her body, now so different after childbirth, he didn’t hide his hunger. He peeled the towel away from her hips and thighs, then covered her warm skin with his palms.

When his eyes lifted to her face, she could see his hesitancy to go further.

“Is...” he almost didn’t continue, “is this okay?”

Rey bit her lower lip, before inclining her head.

He nudged her forward, tipping her over to crash against a short mound of pillows. She blinked at him as he traced the silvery lines that stretched across her stomach with the rough pad of his thumb, then continued to watch as he dipped his head to kiss her belly-button.

Ren was attentive and unhurried as he moved down her body to settle between her thighs, and the strokes of his tongue were as equally sedate as the rest of him. His breath was warm on her sex, his ample lips and wide tongue giving, and Rey sighed at his leisurely slide through her swollen flesh.

It was only when she was positively buzzing from his stimulation that he heaved his mouth away, dropping it to her lips so that she could taste the tang of her own arousal. His hips pressed to hers, a familiar weight.

“Tell me if I need to stop,” he said.

Rey tugged at his sleep pants enough to free his erection.

“Please don’t,” she replied, a hand reaching between them to wrap about him.

He hissed as she gave a slight squeeze.

His mouth kept her quiet as he keeled into her, swallowing the deep moan that reverberated in her chest. They rocked against each other in lurching motions, mindful of their volume as they rediscovered their pace.

“I love you,” he whispered into her skin after, as their chests still heaved and their limbs weighed too much to move. It was a reminder, in case she had forgotten.

Rey couldn’t explain the tightening in her throat, the panic that curled in her chest.

 

* * *

 

Rey woke with the sun. It was a habit she had yet to break after long years on Jakku.

She shifted and stretched, arms reaching out to find the space Ren belonged in empty. Rey flopped onto her back, turning her head to where he usually lie at night. He was standing just beyond where he was supposed to be, and Rey exhaled at finding him again. He always acted as if he were smoke, under threat of being blown away by the wind.

He stared out the duraglass view to the morning forest, light just barely creeping through the trees, his back to her. She allowed herself a brief smile, before perceiving the trembling of his shoulders and the way his head was ducked forward ever so slightly.

“Ren?” she called to him, moving across the bed.

His back straightened at the sound of her voice.

“You’re up,” he croaked, then cleared his throat.

“What’s wrong?” Rey asked, standing.

He managed to wipe his eyes with the meaty heel of his palm before she turned him towards her, but there was no hiding the evidence of his crying. Ahnna was clinging to her father’s chest with a teething grin.

Ren didn’t answer, and he didn’t have to. Ahnna did for him.

“Pah,” she giggled, repeating the syllable over as she pounded on his pectorals with a small, tightly wound fist.

_Papa._

All his barriers came tumbling down, his barely maintained strength an obvious facade as his expression fractured under the pressure of a cracked sob. Rey didn’t know how to react as he reached for her, pinning their pleased and pealing daughter between their larger bodies.

His dread and horror surged through her as his face pressed to the crown of her head, his breath a warm, humid puff as it clung to her hair.

Ahnna proudly continued to babble, squirming in what little space she had.

Rey forced a sad smile for the sake of their daughter.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” she said, shifting her arm so that she could stroke Ahnna’s hair, “he’s Papa.”

Ren squeezed tighter still. She couldn’t imagine how difficult this must have been to him. She had no idea what he might have called Han in his own childhood.

Confused by Ren’s weeping, Ahnna’s lips quivered.

It took him a few unconsolable minutes, but his retched gasps eventually eased, his hold loosening slightly. Rey knew this moment meant more to him than he would ever let on.

“Are you going on a walk later?” he asked quietly, his voice ragged.

Rey blinked at him, bewildered. He should have known the answer without asking.

“Well, yes, of course--”

He interrupted her. “I want to go with you.”

Her heart thudded in her chest, and she didn’t understand her own anxiety. Unable to work her voice, she nodded her head.

 

* * *

 

He forced her to wear boots. Her only pair had sat idle for so long in their closet that they felt tight and confining on her feet. He fretted over Ahnna as well, but insisted Rey carry her on her back. Ren was on edge, and it was no wonder--he had yet to return to the woods since his self-imposed isolation months back.

It brought back memories of Snoke, a looming danger they were not ready to face.

She propelled them down a path she had worn away over the past months, trying to avoid looking at the lightsaber hanging on his belt.

It was rather sunny out, and that was enough to keep Ahnna happy. She burbled on Rey’s back, unaware of her mother’s distress. Ren was waiting for something, his eyes scanning the trees.

The blaster shot came out of nowhere, instantly dropping him to his knee. He grunted as he sunk to the dirt. The shot left a hole straight through his thigh, burning as it went. Rey shrieked in time for the second shot to blaze through his shoulder; it wasn’t meant to deter him so much as cause pain.

A sniper.

She rushed over, stumbling as she went, her hands clumsy as she tried to assess his injuries. When her gaze lifted to his ashen face, his lips were mashed together in a thin line.

He was resigned.

He had seen this happen.

Her hands fell away from him, dripping crimson, disbelief forcing her to sit back onto her calves.

_This_ was what he had been hiding from her. _This_ was the reason why he had spent his every waking moment with Ahnna. He had always known he would be taken away from them.

“This was always going to happen,” he assured through grit teeth.

Rey couldn’t breathe. He thrust his lightsaber into her hands.

“Even if we had run, it would have happened.”

“You don’t know that!” she retorted, dropping the saber to reach for him instead.

She was strong. She could heave him away. She didn’t want to think that he could very well bleed out before they got anywhere.

Ahnna was screaming, her voice shrill.

“I _do,”_ he growled back, “take the saber and go. It’s me they’re after.”

“I can’t leave you here!” she snapped at him. “I can’t do this on my own--”

“You’re going to have to,” he said, tone sharp. “Don’t go back home. Go straight to the shuttle. I’ve entered coordinates to somewhere you should be able to stay for at least a few days. Keep moving, whatever you do.”

“I’m not--”

_“Go!”_ he barked.

They were no longer alone. His eyes flickered away from her to a short distance behind where she kneeled, recognition flashing across his face.

“Go now,” he shoved her behind him. She stumbled into the brush.

“My, my, Ren,” the sniper sneered, “you _have_ been busy.”

He was a tall and narrow man, his red hair slicked back. A blaster with a long barrel hung over his shoulder by a leather strap. He was a man that kept his distance from the battlefield, but demanded respect by his posture alone. This was a man born to lead.

“General Hux,” Ren glowered back.

Without warning, the general threw a fist, and there was the resounding snap of Ren’s nose breaking. This was personal. Otherwise, no general would ever bother to go after a deserter himself, not when he had plenty of troops to command.

A squad of stormtroopers filed in, and Rey finally had to do as she was told. She couldn’t fight them all, not without risking Ahnna. In that moment, she hated Ren. If he had just told her, they could have left Nemussterra in time.

As she ran, she only spared one glance to see Ren land on his back as General Hux crushed his boot into his thigh. Though Ren had surely cried out, she could only hear Ahnna as she continued to wail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we have a cliffhanger. I really must be evil.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments/kudos/general love. I really appreciate all my lovely readers. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey gets away, and finds her new hiding place both familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm losing momentum for this story. I get excited whenever I talk to my beta, but I really have to force myself to write this. Maybe it's because I have too many side-projects. Idk. Should I even bother???

Rey didn’t stop or even slow as she moved Ahnna from her back to her better-protected front. It was a good thing she had, because a blaster shot flew past her head, striking a nearby tree instead. It hadn’t been a warning; the shooter was simply not as accurate as the sniper had been.

She spared a look back, only to see that she was being followed by a pair of stormtroopers. General Hux was underestimating her, though Rey supposed that was something to be thankful for. For all the General knew, she was a pitiful whore Ren had managed to knock up. In a moment of self-directed anger, she thought he wouldn’t have been all wrong to think it.

Ahnna was pealing with cries, but Rey didn’t have the time to console her. Another shot was fired, this one grazing her side. She grunted, faltering a step. She would tend to it later. If she made it to the safety of the shuttle.

It seemed Ren had given her his lightsaber for a good reason. She ignited the blade, and it thrummed in her palm, a living, breathing beast compared to the Skywalker legacy lightsaber. It seemed too dangerous a weapon to wield--it spat fire and crackled at its own master, it punished whoever dared to use it, and it seemed so fitful that Ren had a saber that hated him as much as he hated himself.

Rey felt helpless in her lack of options. With little choice in the matter, she swung the saber as the next blaster fire was aimed at her back, kindly returning the burning bolt to the shooter, who promptly fell with a filtered moan. Rey heard the sound of white armor crashing, but had no way of knowing if the stormtrooper was down for good. If not, she hoped he was at least going to be down long enough for her to get away.

The second trooper was unrelenting, however, and while Rey was fairly fast on her feet, her injury was slowing her down. She slashed at her pursuer when he got close enough, Ren’s shrieking saber slicing too easily through armor and flesh for her to take comfort, even as the stormtrooper dropped, quiet obviously dead.

She stumbled another kilometer, rushing aboard their ship without pausing. It took her a few minutes to go through flight preparations, but then she was airborne, flying perhaps too close to the trees.

Finn’s voice rang in her head, sharper than she remembered it being.

_Stay low; it confuses their tracking!_

She doubted anyone would go looking for her quite yet, or if General Hux so much as cared. He had gotten the prize he wanted, she and her daughter were collateral. Still, she would do a half orbit before breaking atmosphere and jumping into hyperspace. The coordinates Ren had entered into the navigational system were unfamiliar to Rey, but there was so much of the galaxy she didn’t know.

Only once she had slipped into hyperspace did Rey stroke her daughter’s hair. She had never thought her daughter would have to face the threat of death at so young an age. Ahnna was tuckered out and cranky because of it, but at least she was safe. For the moment.

Rey left the cockpit. The small crew quarters had only one bed, and she placed Ahnna in the middle of it.

She tried not to think about the long hours Ren had held her in that very bed, cradling her pregnant body.

Her movements were mechanical as she removed her top to inspect her wound. It wasn’t bad. There was very little blood loss. She swiveled around to get a good look at the blaster burn. As much as it stung, it would heal, even without the application of bacta. Tossing the ruined vest aside, she curled around Ahnna, a hand resting on her rounded baby belly.

Ahnna was kicking her legs in frustration, and Rey knew it was due to Ren’s absence. Already her daughter could sense it, and while it broke her heart that he was the preferred parent, his presence was missed.

He was the stupidest man to ever exist, Rey was certain. They could have run. If he had woken her that morning to rush them off Nemussterra, they would have gotten away together, there was no doubt in her mind. Yet, he had let his fears control him. He had seen one fate, and decided it was his only--and then concluded he had to see it pass.

Ren was so selfish.

Who did he think he was protecting, by surrendering himself to the First Order to be tortured, manipulated, possibly killed? Rey felt far from safe. Ahnna was still in danger, and they were more exposed than ever.

His hollow, broken expression from that morning branded the back of her closed eyelids.

She clenched her teeth, fury bobbing and burning in her throat. He had left her alone, abandoned again.

“I hate you,” Rey rasped.

She hoped he could feel her rage at his inevitable betrayal. After all, it had only been a matter of time before he cast her aside. Every relationship she ever had had an expiration date.

 

* * *

 

Rey felt numbed as she left hyperspace, eleven hours later. She was tired and had been unable to rest the entire duration it took to fly to her unknown destination, but that wasn’t all of it. Though she was in unfamiliar space, the sight of two stars--Tatoo I and Tatoo II, the nav computer informed her--orbiting a single, dusty planet was recognizable in its own way.

Already, Rey could taste baked sand in her mouth, her throat dry and hot with panic. Ren had sent her to yet another desert planet.

_Tatooine._

She landed at the set coordinates, but was unable to budge from the pilot’s seat. She could see the shimmering heatwaves radiating off the sand, and it sent a bout of nausea through her. After all her lonely years on Jakku, she had never returned to her AT-AT-turned-home, refusing to face a past she had discarded as much as she had been.

There was an urge to cry, both in grief and frustration, but Rey clamped her eyes, refusing to waste so much as a drop of water. The desert had no care for her feelings, it was an unforgiving landscape that would only punish her for weeping.

It was only when Rey stepped outside the shuttle did she realize how much she had paled in the time since she left Jakku. Months of space travel and Nemussterra’s rare and gentle sunshine had erased her freckles and whitened her skin. She felt the pink spread of burns across the arches of her cheeks, the heat stifling and abrasive. Concerned for the soft complexion of her daughter, Rey tucked Ahnna further into the make-shift sling she wore across her chest.

It was double noon, a particularly treacherous time of day, as both suns were perched in the highest point of the sky; great, burning sentinels that hovered over a desolate, barren planet. It was hotter than any midday on Jakku, Rey could quickly determine.

She didn’t waste time exploring the horizon of packed sand and dunes beyond, trudging for the small structure Ren had clearly intended to hide her away in. A moisture farm, she realized with wry delight, one that had been vacated for several decades. At least they wouldn’t be dying of thirst any time soon--if she could get the vaporators running. She would wait until the worst of the heat had passed before checking them, but they looked to be in various states of disrepair.

Of course, she wasn’t even sure that the farm’s generators were still functional enough to power the moisture vaporators, should she try to get them operating again.

Rey huffed a sigh, slinking into the shade of the adobe-built home. Even without being exposed to the harsh sunlight of double noon, Ahnna’s face was flushed when she uncovered her. She had never been exposed to the dry heat of a desert, and Rey had hoped she never would have to be. Desert planets were the sort of places that got ignored by any formal, galactic government. They lacked the resources necessary to attract attention. However bright they might have been, they were dim spots in the galaxy.

It served her purposes for the moment, but Tatooine was not a system she wanted to stay in for any duration of time.

If the size of the womp rat nest inside the kitchen was any indication, it was as Rey had originally suspected. This moisture farm was long abandoned, empty since before the fall of the Empire. Thankfully it was isolated enough to have faced little pillaging. Rey found a workshop still supplied with mechanical tools.

She was left with the impression that whoever had lived here had left in a hurry, and with no intention of returning.

So, Rey easily fell back into the well-worn boots of a scavenger. It seemed that much about her would never change--she was readily able to slip back into her past life of making use of absolute garbage. Moreover, she was good at it.

She rested in the relative cool of the house until double noon passed, and then she had Ahnna strapped onto her back, secure and out of the sun. Sizzling in the heat, she cursed Ren’s name.

Still, her agile fingers worked on getting the power generators up again. It was an undertaking, but the hours stretched long on Tatooine, giving her plenty of natural light to work by. It was a solar-powered system, so at least she wouldn’t have to worry about charging the generators; the twin suns would do that much.

She refused to rest until she got the power online, and even then, she only left it on long enough to see that one of the generators was functioning. By then, both suns were dipping towards the horizon, the long stretch of sky turning red as Tatoo I and Tatoo II shot sunlight through layers of atmosphere.

Helplessly she stood, watching as the relentless balls of fire fell beyond her line of vision.

Wherever Ren was, he was in pain. She could sense it. Perhaps Ahnna, fidgeting in her arms, could as well, and that was nearly worse.

Rey bit her lower lip until she tasted the tang of blood.

 

* * *

 

Ren may have told her to keep moving, but Rey had to balk at the logistics of doing so. The moisture farm, securely hidden on a backwater planet no one would ever know to look, was a good place to stay, despite the desert heat and archaic technology. His instincts had told him that they would be safe there, and Rey found herself agreeing, however much she resented him for sending them.

The few days she was supposed to stay there turned into weeks.

She wasn’t without a plan. Mos Eisley, she learned, was close enough for her to travel there without breaking atmosphere, and when the time came, she would sell her shuttle and buy a new one, then make herself scarce once more.

 

* * *

 

Rey woke with a start. She had taken to sleeping during the hottest point of the day in an attempt to conserve energy, but now she could hear engines. It was a cruiser, though not overly large, if she was to guess by the sound.

Her heart pounded in her throat. If they were close enough for her to hear them, then they were close enough to see the moisture farm had a new resident.

There was the distinct thud of a ship landing on packed sand.

Rey sucked in sharply. Ahnna stirred from her own slumber with a whine. She collected the infant from where she lied on the bed, holding her to her chest.

She couldn’t sense danger, or anyone at all, but she knew they were no longer alone. And that meant they were no longer safe.

Rey unclipped Ren’s lightsaber from her belt. She could simply kill the intruder, she realized with a firm frown, then take their ship. It was time to move on. Her palms were sweaty and tight around the hilt of the lightsaber.

Her chest heaved and Ahnna whimpered with uncertainty, and there were foot steps, shuffling inside. Audible enough to be within her reach. She may have been in a bedroom, but the stranger hadn’t bothered to search the farm very much. They knew where she was hiding, and they were coming right for her.

Hesitating could mean death. She ignited the saber. It hissed and crackled at her.

When the door slid open, she swung.

Her guest had the reflexes to catch her arm mid-swing.

Startled, Rey blinked as she gazed into the familiar, gray face of the last person she could have expected. Luke Skywalker.

“Rey, I thought I might find you here,” he greeted, though he wasn’t looking at her.

His gaze was fixed steadily on Ahnna’s head of dark curls. He must have known instantly. Still, he made no comment.

“I spent my childhood here, you know,” Luke continued, looking around the room, eyes tracking a thin crack that ran up the adobe wall. “My aunt and uncle owned this moisture farm...though I suppose it belongs to me, now. If I was being technical.”

Rey could take a hint.

“Don’t worry,” she breathed, “I’m leaving.”

He offered a tired smile.

“That wasn’t what I was trying to suggest,” he started to guide her out, clearly towards the open dining room. “We can at least have a conversation first, if you feel you must leave.”

Rey gave him a suspicious, sideways glance, frowning. “I’m not sure I have all that much to say.”

He huffed a laugh. “No, I’m sure you don’t. But you’re polite enough to humor an old man.”

Rey opened her mouth to protest.

“After all, if I’m going to tell Leia she’s a grandmother, I better be sure I can give a full report.”

She pursed her lips together, and his laugh sounded more genuine at the sight of her grimace.

They sat across from each other at the table. Rey perched Ahnna on her knee, staring resolutely out at the courtyard. She had nothing against Luke Skywalker, personally. Rey could, however, imagine how Ren’s gut would churn at the thought of his uncle anywhere near their daughter. Besides, she did not like the idea of Luke returning to his sister to share the _happy_ news.

It was very likely General Organa knew she had fled the Resistance because of her pregnancy, but Rey did not want old friends out looking for her again. She briefly closed her eyes at the memory of her reunion with Finn at Maz’s castle. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and she doubted he would be very forgiving, especially if he learned why she had run off with Ren.

“I...would rather you didn’t say anything to General Organa,” Rey said at last.

He nodded, unsurprised. “I suppose Ben wouldn’t like that, would he?”

Rey stroked Ahnna’s hair absentmindedly, looking down as she bit her lower lip.

“No, _Ren_ wouldn’t.”

He made no indication that he heard her subtle correction.

“Speaking of my nephew, where is the proud father? I’m assuming that if he was here, he would have been the one to greet me with that lightsaber.”

Rey closed her eyes, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s head. She didn’t like to think about where Ren was, but she could feel him struggling. General Hux enjoyed having custody of Ren, and however much he tried to block the worst of it, the pain Hux dealt him still leaked through; dull, ghosting aches that appeared for no reason at random intervals. She knew whatever he felt was more agonizing.

“The First Order took him,” she replied, her voice quiet.

Rey wasn’t entirely sure she should trust Luke, regardless of their previous roles as student and teacher. She had run from the Resistance to bear a child with its enemy. Through her training, however brief it was, Rey had never broached the subject of Kylo Ren or Ben Solo with him, for fear of how he would react.

Now, however, she felt strangely put at ease for the first time in weeks. She couldn’t be sure if it was caused merely by seeing a familiar face, or if it was her old master’s presence that soothed her.

He considered her for a moment, but Rey could tell this was not the answer he had expected.

“Took him?” he repeated, uncertain.

“Ren left the First Order. He was afraid of what Snoke might do, if he found out.”

“And _has_ he?”

His voice turned uncharacteristically sharp, and it startled Rey. She could only incline her head shortly.

He sighed then, drawing out the sound as he slumped back in his chair.

“I see.”

The silence that settled between them did not last long.

It was interrupted quite suddenly by Chewbacca, who stormed in, taking the stairs two at a time to enter the sandy courtyard, roaring all the way. Rey instantly was on her feet at the rumbled warning in Shyriiwook, a hand pulling Ahnna’s head towards her chest.

They had company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, for reading! :) Feedback is appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After seeing what Ren faces with the First Order, Rey comes to a fateful decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end, guys. My guess, we have about three chapters left.

Very shortly after Chewbacca’s warning, the familiar shriek of ion engines could be heard. There was no sense in hiding with First Order Tie Fighters flying over their heads, and Rey cursed loudly. Regardless of Ren’s opinion on the matter, she instantly knew she had but one option--to follow Luke Skywalker and the Wookie aboard the Millennium Falcon.

Even if she did want to part with them in the strife, the likelihood of her escaping an entire squadron of Tie Fighters while piloting her shuttle alone, with no one to fire back at them, was very low. It was safer with Luke, and though the situation may have been downright uncomfortable, Ahnna’s safety was more important.

Running ahead of her, she picked snippets of a shouted conversation-- _why does she have a baby_ \--We can talk about it later, Chewie!--and she could only imagine how Chewbacca would feel about Ahnna.

He could never hate Han’s grandchild; Rey doubted he could even hate Han’s son, but her daughter was born to the man that had murdered Han. The man that had murdered his own father, motive and reason besides the point. Chewbacca must have seen the head of dark curls and made some sort of connection, but their was hardly time for him to do much about it.

She rushed up the onramp, overwhelmed by the blended smells of engine grease and worn leather, and for just a second, she closed her eyes and saw Ren, conflicted, heartbroken, confused, thrusting his saber through his father’s chest. She remembered the exact pitch of her own scream, and of Chewbacca’s echoing roar, and then the sight of Ren dropping to his knees in agony, blood slipping down his hip.

“Rey, go help Chewie pilot,” Luke broke her from her reverie, “I’m going to try to keep those Tie Fighters off our tail,” he said, already sprinting for the gunner’s position with startling speed for someone his age.

She jogged after Chewbacca to the cockpit, where he was already lifting them off the ground. It was with surprising ease that she was able to slip into the copilot’s seat and begin prepping the hyperdrive; no matter where they were going, they needed to get out of this system fast, they could decide on destination once they were safe.

Ahnna babbled in her lap, and Chewbacca made a quiet moan, to which Rey smiled.

“I missed you too,” she replied, helping guide the Falcon towards the atmosphere, and if they were lucky, open space.

A Star Destroyer was waiting for them just outside Tatooine’s atmosphere, which was not a shock to anyone. Tie Fighters were not capable of traveling very far on their own, but to veterans like Luke and Chewbacca, navigating their way around the monolithic ship and shooting down Tie Fighters was a relatively simple task.

If the wild stories she’d heard had any stock to them, then Luke and Chewbacca had faced bigger monsters than a Star Destroyer. She was inclined to believe Luke just might have blown a Death Star from space without Academy training once, considering the ease they had in getting away.

“Chewie, would you set a course for D’Qar?” Luke hummed, straightening his robes as he sauntered into the cockpit.

Rey’s head whipped around.

“No way, I’m not stepping foot onto a Resistance base,” she snarled.

Luke considered her for a long moment, eyes studying her intently.

“What are you so afraid of Leia doing?” he asked at last, gauging her face as it contorted into a hard glare.

“I’m not afraid of _anything,”_ she insisted, teeth grit.

“No, you are,” Luke said, watching as she gathered Ahnna into a more secure hold. “I have no doubt Ben has had plenty to say about his childhood, not all of which is unfounded, but all the same. You can’t honestly think Leia would want to harm her own granddaughter.”

While Chewbacca had listened in silence, he now stood with a drawn out howl, punctuated with a tone of betrayal.

Rey looked away in shame, teeth catching her lower lip. She had no way to defend herself.

After all, he was right. What was she thinking, involving herself with a man that had killed his own father? He was a man that had turned his back on everything his parents had ever worked towards in order to give birth to the First Order. How was a man like that supposed to be a worthy father? He had slaughtered _Han._

Rey hardly knew how to say that she loved him, despite his many faults. Perhaps there was something much more fundamentally wrong with her than there was with Ren. She was the one who looked past his actions, disregarded his allegiances. Fucked him like a whore.

Did it matter that he made her feel more than she thought humanly possible?

“Ren regrets it, every day,” she whispered. “I don’t think anyone hates him more than he hates himself.”

Chewbacca growled at her, accusation in every warble, and Rey smoothed back Ahnna’s curls, kissing her round, pale forehead.

“I’m sure that’s true,” Luke finally told her, though speaking the words seemed to visibly pain him. “Ben has always struggled with himself.”

Indignant, Chewbacca cried out; he had not expected Luke to say anything in Ren’s defense, and he promptly stormed from the cockpit. Rey could not blame him for being upset. She, too, had witnessed Han’s death. He must have never anticipated her being able to forgive Ren either.

A dark thought crossed her mind, that she had known Ren much longer than she had Han, so of course her side should have been obvious.

She stood to reiterate, “I’m _not_ going to D’Qar.”

Then, she exited as well, to search for crew quarters.

 

* * *

 

_His nose itched with the peeling flakes of dried blood. It had been broken, then healed, then re-broken several times over in the past few weeks, but pain was hardly new to him. It didn’t matter, so long as Ahnna and Rey were safe and out of Snoke’s reach. This thought alone got him through General Hux’s particular brand of_ playing _._

_He wasn’t convinced that Hux had so much as alerted Supreme Leader Snoke to his capture, not when having him under his thumb was so entertaining._

_Blearily looking at the sleek black door of his cell, he wondered just what Hux had in store for him today. Ren had never known that Hux had such an affinity for torture, though he hardly should have been surprised. He couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that Hux had yet to ask him a single question about Rey or his daughter. It made their sessions and the subsequent medical attention utterly pointless, but the longer Hux toyed with him, the longer Rey had to keep Ahnna safe._

_This was just a futile hope, of course, and perhaps he was losing all common sense if he thought the First Order wasn’t looking for them. Hux_ must _have been searching, if only so that he could hold their imprisonment over his head._

_While they had never been particularly close, Ren wondered just what he had done to Hux for him to despise him as he did._

_He wrinkled his nose, trying to scratch the itch without use of his hands, both of which would remain restrained for the foreseeable future. It did no good, and he gave up._

_Right on schedule, General Hux made his grand entrance, great coat sweeping after him with each long stride. He removed the coat, however, swift to send it to the clawed hands of a nearby droid. Though his gloves were snug, Hux pulled at the seam around his wrist, yanking them tighter to be sure they were secure._

_“You know, Ren,” Hux began, setting aside his hat as well, “I really enjoy my time with you. It has become my favorite part of the day.”_

_Ren said nothing. He never spoke during their interactions, and at this point, Hux was no longer bothered that he couldn’t garner a satisfactory response from him._

_“I feel that we have become friends over the past few weeks,” he continued, fishing through his pockets for the small switchblade he kept on his person, “and as such, I’ve decided to share some good news.”_

_He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Hux’s flowery language. If this was how he treated_ friends, _he didn’t want to know how he treated family. Though it was with a small, wry grimace that he thought he hardly had any room to judge._

_It was going to be one of those days, Ren determined, the ones where Hux talked and talked, while slowly etching lines into his flesh with a fine blade. Hux tore at his sleeve, exposing the white skin of his underarm. His muscles quivered as Hux brought up the blade, swiping at the sensitive skin just below his armpit._

_“We finally got a location on the girl and baby. They will soon be in our hands,” Hux smiled. “The Execrator has been sent after them. I thought it was time I orchestrated a family reunion for you.”_

_Ren stared at him with wild eyes, blown open with shock. The knife made another slice, but he could not feel that pain. Not when his chest felt torn open in agonizing horror._

_“She’ll get away,” Ren breathed. He had to believe that. “She’s smarter than you are.”_

_Hux’s abrupt laugh was punctuated by the slip of the blade through his bicep. “You think so?”_

_Blood was streaming down his arm to his elbow, where it dripped down to form a slick on the obsidian floor._

_“I’m not so sure,” Hux said. “From the looks of it, she has stayed in the same place for weeks. Do you think she’s waiting for you? It is a bit pathetic, if you think about it. So lonely that she would crawl to your bed. The poor bitch doesn’t know any better.”_

_Hux slashed a forth tally mark against his inner arm. Soon, he would be reaching into his breast pocket for his handkerchief to clean his blade. He was nothing if not meticulous._

_“Don’t talk about her like that,” Ren barked, lifting himself against the restraints in an attempt to lunge forward. This move hadn’t worked on the first day, and it wouldn’t now, and he knew the pointlessness of his own actions. It still felt better than sitting dumbly, listening to Hux blather._

_Hux considered the bloodied knife with the usual level of disinterest, before plunging it into his gut._

_Ren grunted as it pierced his soft insides through an armor of muscle, his head ducking forward when he was unable to hide the pain from his face. Tears trickled down the length of his nose, and Hux turned away as he began to clean the knife and address the nearby droid._

_“Have him properly healed and bathed by tomorrow, and don’t bother feeding him. It will only be coming back up again.”_

_The droid offered back the great coat, then trilled an affirmation._

_Then Hux was gone in the same dramatic flurry he had entered with._

_Ren could only strain to wipe his face against his shoulder._

 

* * *

 

Rey jolted into consciousness. Beside her, Ahnna was wailing.

That hadn’t been a dream. It had been real. And Ahnna had seen it, too. Instantly, Rey knew all of this to be true.

She hadn’t known what Ren’s fate would be at his capture, and she had hoped rather than believed that despite being back with the First Order, he would be able to negotiate his way out of imprisonment. Being one of their commanders was hardly a better outcome, but _torture?_

Even interrogation she would have understood. General Hux didn’t appear to be asking any questions, nor have any interest in information, however.

She ignored the ghosting twinge of Ren’s pain on her arm and drew Ahnna to her chest. If Rey could feel that pain, her daughter undoubtedly could as well, and for a helpless moment, she wanted to cry as Ahnna was. It wasn’t _fair._

“It’s okay,” Rey sniffed, rubbing her back, knowing it was far from.

Ren’s control was slipping, his barriers cracking under too much pressure, if they had been allowed to see just what was happening to him. The only thing she could be certain of was that he had already endured much worse than a few cuts with a small knife, and this realization made her stomach churn.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember each ache. Bones that had been broken, and then healed too quickly. Bruises, internal bleeding, sleep deprivation and then chemically induced nightmares--General Hux had done all of this to him, and for no feasible reason. Of course he had broken. A sob twisted in her throat, and she held it there, refusing to release it.

Rey didn’t realize she had sought him out through the force until she was rapidly shut out of his mind, and it was as if she was falling flat to her backside on hard ground. He hadn’t noticed her presence until it was too late, and she had fully grasped his suffering.

Rey knew what she had to do, but she feared she didn’t have the strength to do it, not alone.

She had to get Ren out.

He may have abandoned her to fulfill what he thought his destiny was, but Rey wasn’t going to abandon him, too. Not any more. Not as so many people had abandoned him in the past. All they had was each other, she reminded herself, and she didn’t care what the cost was. She would get him away from the First Order.

Taking a deep breath, she stood. Ahnna clung to the front of her shirt as she strode out the crew quarters to the main cabin. Chewbacca and Luke were wordlessly locked into a game of Sabacc, and neither looked away when she entered. They seemed to be in a battle of their own, but Rey was not willing to be patient.

She swiped at Luke’s boot with her foot, and he pitched forward in his seat, momentarily surprised. He caught himself with the table’s edge, then straightened.

“I want you to leave us with Maz,” she said with a firm tone.

Luke delicately set his cards face down and turned to give his complete attention.

“You realize that Leia would be more than capable of protecting you both,” he commented, gaze scrutinizing her facial expression.

Rey remained stern. “Like the way she protected her son from Snoke?”

Chewbacca made a low, defensive growl. Luke leaned into the back of his chair, frowning thoughtfully.

“We all tried to help Ben the best we could. Perhaps we should have done more, but ultimately, he made his decision to leave us,” he paused a moment, before adding, “but that’s besides the point. The Resistance is gaining strength. Your daughter would be safe from the First Order with them.”

He couldn’t understand, which hardly came as a surprise.

Carefully, she said, “I don’t need anyone’s protection. Just take me to Takodana and I can sort the rest out for myself.”

Luke was still studying her, and Rey hated it. He was treating her like a defenseless child, which she wasn’t. She may have been alone, but she was a skilled pilot. She had Ren’s lightsaber, and she knew how to use it. Rey hadn’t spent her entire life on Jakku to become dependent on everyone she met, and she wished Luke could recognize that.

“No,” Luke murmured, as astute as ever, “there’s more. You’re planning something more than just hiding.”

Rey shifted to her other foot, considering him.

“I’m going after Ren,” she admitted quietly.

Both Luke and Chewbacca stared at her in disbelief. Rey wanted to be irritated by their shocked expressions, but she knew that their concern was warranted.

“You told me he was taken by the First Order,” Luke managed slowly, piecing together the situation and only becoming increasingly alarmed. “You would have to sneak onto one of their ships--past an entire Star Destroyer worth of defense--to get to him.”

“I know that!” she snapped.

Chewbacca moaned his own pressing concerns. It didn’t matter that he was disappointed with her choice, he still found it in himself to care, and that fact warmed her heart a little.

“I realize I’m a mother now,” she said back, perhaps with more force than strictly necessary, “but he’s her father! Every second that he spends with them, he grows weaker...he can’t keep everything back anymore. What the First Order is doing to him, Ahnna can feel it.”

That was enough to silence them both, and their eyes lowered slightly to her fussy daughter, squirming in her arms. She was still upset by the vision, they both were, and Rey suddenly felt drained.

“May I hold her?” Luke finally asked, not looking away from Ahnna.

Rey exhaled. She saw no reason to not allow it besides how Ren would feel if he knew, and in that moment, she didn’t care. Luke may have made mistakes as a Jedi, but Ahnna would never know her own grandfather. She should at least know her father’s uncle. Rey knew that if she had family, no matter who they were, she would want to know them. Her daughter deserved the same right.

When she stepped closer, Luke uncrossed his arms and opened them towards her, and she placed a fidgeting Ahnna in his hold. His blue eyes sparkled when he smiled down at her.

“She’s quite strong in the force,” he murmured. “She is fortunate to have two parents to guide her.”

Rey blinked at him, not disguising her bewilderment.

“What?”

He straightened, Ahnna mumbling nonsense into his robes, and gazed up at her with determination.

“I will go with you to retrieve Ben. You need more help than you realize, and I’m not going to let you face the First Order on your own.”

Rey felt her head spin. His explanation hardly cleared any confusion she might have felt. Instead, it raised more questions.

“I only have one condition,” Luke continued, amused by her astonishment, “we need a larger crew, and I already have the perfect person in mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Execrator is a made-up Star Destroyer, but with names like Inflictor and Finalizer...it seemed to fit nicely. Anyone have a wild guess on who Luke means? ;)
> 
> Thanks for all the encouragement and love in the past chapter, it really helped a lot when I was doubting myself.
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated. :)


	9. ANOUNCEMENT

Hey, guys. It's been awhile since I've updated, I know. My personal life has been pretty hectic, and to be perfectly honest, it might be some time until it's straightened out again. Silly as it is, writing chapter fics are very stressful to me, and I don't think I can handle it at the moment. I'm not abandoning this fic, but I need to regroup, so I doubt I'll be posting anything but the occasional one-shot or drabble on Ao3 for a bit. Sorry, and thank you all for being understanding...this really breaks my heart to do.

 

~HT


End file.
